Wow. Unbelievable...

Since my last blog the greatest (some might say only) issue to face humanity has been whether we would get any tickets to see Kate Bush at her residency at the Apollo later this year.

You have to approach these things with trepidation. Many of my generation had *that* poster on their walls (if you are too young to remember 1979, ask your father) and I grew up in the period that spans Kate's first five albums, So it's a major part of my early teens - from the genuine (although I am sure expressed differently) WTF at "Wuthering Heights" to seeing the "Cloudbusting" short with Donald Sutherland as a support to "Back to the Future" on an early, and I suspect spectacularly unsuccessful, date. (I was more interested in the fact that Challenger had been lost that day - she wasn't).

So having missed Kate's previous live shows, on the reasonable grounds that I was 11 and lived 300 miles away, I have to see these ones, don't I? "Oh, but", says Nagging Voice Of Gloom, "she must be 55 now. Ain't going to be doing that much of the Wuthering Heights cartwheels now, is she?"

Maybe so, NVOG, but there are some things that you have to do.  Last year's Stones in Hyde Park may have shown that Mick Jagger has kept himself in trim, but he wasn't the be-tunic'd poet of 1969. And the Stones are pretty much a tribute band to themselves nowadays. Last decent track/album? Fuck knows frankly because most people listen to the cheap Greatest Hits CDs.

Kate Bush has always been a show-person. OK, one who doesn't tour, but she understands the need for persona and reinvention - in the same way as Madonna has done for the last thirty years. Those of us who remember her last flirtation with the charts - King of the Mountain from Aerial - on which she does a pretty good Elvis impression. (Evens at the moment on whether Rolf Harris will be reprising his role on some of the bits from that album.) So whatever she is, and isn't, she is going to be interesting.

And so with trepidation I entered the buying frenzy on Friday, and emerged successful. Two tickets. Row J of the stalls. Central. I am excited already and there is still five and a half months to go.

Apologies to those expecting a blog that was either political as I promised, or not solely about Kate Bush. Normal service will be resumed in due course - though not necessarily until October ;-)