Kate Bush Turned Down an Offer to Support Fleetwood Mac on Their 1978 U.S. ‘Rumours’ Tour
Kate Bush turned down an offer to support Fleetwood Mac on their 1978 U.S. Rumours tour. The young English singer was fresh to the music industry, so it was a huge honor. However, she had to focus on her brand-new career first.
Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour discovered the singer-songwriter
Bush started writing songs at 11. Eventually, her talents attracted the attention of a famous rock star. In an interview with Matt Everitt for BBC Radio 6 Music, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour said he discovered Bush through a mutual friend.
“A guy I know called Ricky Hopper was a friend of Kate’s brother, and he came to me one day and said, ‘I’ve got this tape of this 15-year-old girl singing, and I think she’s talented.’ He played it to me, and I agreed that I did think she was very talented.
“Her unusual vocal style and sound, I thought it was unlikely that record companies, A&R people would get it. I was not convinced that they would get it instantly. So, after some various tryouts, I decided to employ a full studio in London with Geoff Emerick engineering and a friend of mine, Andrew Powell, producing and arranging.
“I chose two or three songs out of about 50 that she had, and I didn’t spend a long time choosing, I just sort of thought we’ll have one nice slow one, one sort of medium temperature, one like this… we’ll do those to releasable level so that they weren’t demos, so that they were actually properly ready-to-go tracks.
“I thought that was the best way to take her to the record companies to convince them, and the song ‘The Man With the Child in His Eyes’ was one of those three.”
Gilmour and Powell went on to produce Bush’s debut album, The Kick Inside, in 1978. Powell also produced Bush’s second album, Lionheart.
Kate Bush turned down an offer to open for Fleetwood Mac
According to the Guardian, Bush turned down an offer to open for Fleetwood Mac in 1978 on their U.S. Rumours tour.
She was focused on creating her own live show featuring “music, dance, poetry, mime, burlesque, magic and theatre” (per Jaxsta).
“Wishing to dance across the stage as free as ‘moving liquid’ she collaborated with audio engineer Martin Fisher to devise the world’s first hands-free microphone,” Jaxsta wrote. The first version involved a small microphone taped to a coat hanger.
Bush first used the new invention during 1979’s The Tour Of Life shows.
Bush wasn’t ready to be an opening act, especially for Fleetwood Mac
Besides wanting to figure out her first tour, Bush wasn’t prepared to be an opening act, especially for Fleetwood Mac.
Louder wrote, “Even more tantalising was an offer to support Fleetwood Mac in the US in late ’79. A high-profile slot opening for one of the most successful bands in the world would was an open goal for most artists. But Bush wasn’t most artists.
“Like most support acts, she was going to get half an hour, no dancers and no magicians, so just going up there with four musicians and banging out a couple of hits,” said Brian Southall, then-Artist Development at Bush’s label, EMI, who had worked with her since she was signed. “And she wasn’t prepared to do that.”
Bush might’ve lost the chance to open for Fleetwood Mac. However, it was an honor to have been asked by the famous band in the first place.
