Coachella Hides Lamp Under Bush

Reports that Coachella refused to book Kate Bush because Americans wouldn’t “understand” her caused a bit of a flurry this week, despite being categorically denied by the artist’s team.

According to a piece in the New Yorker, Marc Geiger, head of music at the William Morris Endeavour agency, said Coachella founder Paul Tollett had said no to the suggestion that the musician appear at the LA event.

In the article Geiger countered with: “I’ll say, ‘Kate Bush!’ And [Coachella CEO Paul Tollett will] go, ‘No!,’ and we’ll talk through it. I’ll say, ‘She’s never played here, and she just did 30 shows in the UK for the first time since the late seventies. You gotta do it! Have to!’ ‘No! No one is going to understand it.’”

The piece itself is a fairly fascinating profile of Tollett and well worth reading- but the insatiable hunger of the 24-hour news cycle resulted in numerous reports that the festival had turned down the booking, followed promptly by a statement from camp Bush stating that it was never her intention to play any more shows than the run of shows at Hammersmith Apollo in London during 2014- her first in 35 years.

The statement continued: “The show was conceived for a very specific type of venue. No discussions were ever had with Kate about playing any festival, including Coachella”.

The shows were by all accounts incredibly theatrical and would be difficult to translate to a festival environment, reportedly featuring dancers in life-jackets attacking the stage with chainsaws and giant paper planes. Not exactly The Kings of Leon at V Festival is it?