Kate Bush says a personal thank you to fans

An elated Kate Bush has thanked her millions of fans for their huge support in an open letter published on her website.

The Before the Dawn gigs, 22 performances at London’s Hammersmith Apollo venue, kicked off 26 August until 1 October.

Described as a “surreal journey”, they were her first shows since 1979 and the extensive international media coverage showed that her fans had finally got what they had been waiting a very long time for. And, based on social-media posts, they were not disappointed.

Here is part of the letter.

“Hi there, Now all the shows are over, it's pretty difficult to explain how I feel about it all. It was quite a surreal journey that kept its level of intensity right from the early stages to the end of the very last show. It was also such great fun. It was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. I loved the whole process. Particularly putting the band, the Chorus and the team together and watching it all evolve. It really was the ultimate combination of talent and artists, both from the music business and the theatre world. I never expected everyone in the team to be so lovely and we all grew very close. We became a family and I really miss them all terribly. I was really delighted that the shows were received so positively and so warmly but the really unexpected part of it all was the audiences. Audiences that you could only ever dream of. One of the main reasons for wanting to perform live again was to have contact with that audience.”

Bush is the first (and, so far, the only) female artist to have Top 5 albums in the UK charts in five successive decades. Her best-known hits include Wuthering Heights, The Man with the Child in His Eyes, Running Up That Hill and Don't Give Up, a duet with Peter Gabriel.

[Juliana Koranteng]