Guy Lloyd on luck, spare tickets, and begging forgiveness

Wuthering Heights

I’m going to get this out of the way immediately. Yes, I did get to see Kate Bush and I’m very sorry if you didn’t. You’re probably on your way over to torch my house now, but I would also like to come clean and say that I didn’t even try to buy tickets when they went on sale. Yes, I accept that you really hate me now.

And whilst I’m the walking dead, I may as well admit that I’m not the world’s biggest Kate Bush fan. I own one album, The Whole Story (I can actually hear you explode with rage now) and ‘Wuthering Heights’ is in my top ten all-time favourite songs. OK, I feel better now. Like I’ve gone to alcoholics anonymous and admitted I enjoy heavily drinking, on the quiet. And it’s OK to hate me. You are fully justified.

But at least hear me out on this before I appear in The Argus for all the wrong reasons. Like many music fans, I was very excited when Kate Bush announced that she was going to perform live for the first time in 35 years. It was a similar feeling to when Prince announced he was playing in a few sheds around London and David Bowie decided to release a single, while everyone was asleep.

But I’m not one for sitting on the internet at 9am and refreshing every five seconds (unless Freddie Mercury comes back from the dead), so I ignored the tickets going on sale and resigned myself to never seeing her live in my lifetime. It obviously sold out in seconds, as did the extra dates she put on.

Some weeks later, I received a message on Facebook from someone I had befriended at a wedding in Switzerland, two years ago. She had two spare tickets. I snapped them up.

I gave my spare to a Kate Bush nut (do you forgive me now?) and last week, we saw the good lady herself.

Now, at the time of writing, Kate Bush still had a few dates to go of her 22-date run at the Hammersmith Apollo. So I’m not going to give you the opportunity to hate me even more by describing what I saw.

If you didn’t go, you will be burning this magazine by now; if you are going, I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

Needless to say, it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life and one of my top three all-time favourite gigs, alongside Blur at Glastonbury a few years ago and Queen’s last ever live performance at Knebworth in 1986. If you still hate me, console yourself with this; I’ve paid to see Status Quo live. I hate myself now.

Follow me: @guy_lloyd