The concerts that David Gilmour called “some of the best I’ve seen”
David Gilmour has been no stranger to putting on a great show.
Throughout his time in Pink Floyd, every single one of their tours had almost been a way of topping themselves in terms of how far a spectacle could go, whether that was having the amazing light shows in the Syd Barrett era or watching them bring many pieces of Dark Side of the Moon to life when putting together one of their last major tours. But Gilmour was always willing to look out for the other artists that could blow him away whenever he was in the crowd.
For all of the great music that he could make, though, being a performer didn’t always come easy for Gilmour all the time. He wanted the opportunity to make great music without having to rely on a gimmick, but when you see yourself as a musician first, you tend to find out pretty quickly that the rest of the audience is going to be incredibly bored if they’re just seeing a random guy strumming away on a guitar.
So, really, Roger Waters does deserve a lot of credit for teaching Gilmour what the live show could be. It wasn’t going to be easy for him to get up on top of a massive wall to play the iconic solos on ‘Comfortably Numb’, but it was well worth it to see the fans’ reactions when listening to the story of Pink play out live onstage. It wasn’t Gilmour’s first love, but he was great at spotting the talent when he saw it.
Although he did have a lot of time to listen to rock legends and professional loiterers, Eagles, whenever they played their classics, something about listening to artists like Michael Jackson perform gave him the same kind of adrenaline rush that he would have had if he were playing. And while his proteges like Kate Bush were far from the most frequent performers, it was a shame to think that she wasn’t going to be going onstage until she felt like it.
Bush was more of a craftsman, and while Gilmour never wanted to rush her, what she was doing was absolutely spellbinding in his eyes, saying, “Kate Bush is the only person who can get Kate Bush back on stage. I think the shows she did in 2014 at the Hammersmith Apollo were some of the best I’ve ever seen. We went several nights. I’ve tried persuading her recently, actually.”
But it’s understandable why Bush would be hesitant to go back out on the road. Her one major tour was far from the most easygoing trek across the world, and while there are moments on her albums that would lend themselves well to being played in front of an audience, it’s easier to admire the craftsmanship on display across her records rather than worry about how a certain guitar part was going to translate in an arena full of people.
If she were to go onstage, though, it would be slightly more conceptual than the average greatest-hits approach that every other music legend takes. Everyone on the Stranger Things bandwagon may have wanted to see her play ‘Running Up That Hill’, but if she were to make a massive production, it may be something along the lines of playing The Ninth Wave in full or making an entire theatrical experience centred around one of her albums.
While a lot of fans can wait with baited breath to see what she has in store next, it’s not like anyone is in any rush to get a massive Kate Bush tour in the books. Because if you know anything about Bush, it’s that she marches to her own beat, and if she wants to become a performer again, it’s going to be on her terms.
