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THE HALF MOON PUB IN PUTNEY, SOUTH
London, has seen some pretty special musical performances over the years. The summer of 1977, for instance, found it hosting an artist whose theatrical pretensions and grandiose ambition would dominate British music over subsequent decades.
Besides Steve Harris and his early line-up of Iron Maiden, though, the KT Bush band also played the Half Moon that summer, on June 3. It’s one of the many strange details of Kate Bush’s career that over 47 years she’s essentially played three ‘tours’: 2014’s 22-night residency at the Hammersmith Apollo; 1979’s two-month Tour Of Life; and roughly a dozen dates around June 1977, taking in various London pubs – The Black Cat, Catford! The White Hart, Tottenham! – as well as a Sunday afternoon out-of-town gig at Tiffany’s nightclub in Harlow.
In Tom Doyle’s exceptional cover story this month, we uncover these first tentative manoeuvres of Kate Bush: from compulsive pre-teen songwriter, through David Gilmour’s mentoring, to Wuthering Heights superstardom and a trio of albums where her vision, authority and self-belief would become ever more prominent. Still, though, this fleeting pub rock phase in the high summer of punk intrigues. What did her version of Honky Tonk Women sound like? Did she shoot the band and audience at the climax of James And The Cold Gun every night? And were you lucky enough to be at any of the shows? Memories, please, to the usual address.
Darling, itʼs wonderful. But isnʼt it very painful?
I was at the Butthole Surfers ULU gig mentioned in issue 365. My first time seeing them and also my first date with a hardcore American woman who had seen them a few times before. They were truly amazing, but after watching the back-projected genital surgery film I flat out fainted, and came round in the foyer with my date fanning my face. Surprisingly I didn’t get a second date and I never saw the Butthole Surfers again.
I havenʼt paid to see anything in years
Loved the Steely Dan article [MOJO 365]. I was fortunate to see them at Leeds University in 1974. I’d just started my first job after leaving school in June, aged 16. My first week’s wage was £12 and from that I bought Countdown To Ecstasy (£1.99). They kicked off the gig with Bodhisattva and, although it’s nearly 50 years ago (that’s frightening), I remember thinking this is a bit more grown-up than T.Rex! I recall Skunk Baxter took a bottle of Newcastle Brown from an audience member, took a large swig, handed it back and then threw up at the side of the stage a few minutes later. If memory serves me right, the tour was shortened due to illness. Surely not some dodgy Newky Brown?
You ha
