Kate Bush’s loyal fans showed their appreciation for her music long before younger generations heard her in stranger things. They made movies when she retired from music and came together in the hundreds to recreate her iconic music videos.
Kate Bush’s loyal fan base came together to make a documentary called ‘Come Back Kate’ after she once again stepped out of the spotlight in 1993
After releasing their seventh studio album, The Red Shoes, in 1993, Bush again withdrew from the public eye. From his fourth album, The dream, Bush’s pauses began to lengthen. However, it was to be his longest musical break to date.
Bush’s loyal fanbase dreaded how long Bush would stay away from music. Fans Quirine Racké and Helena Muskens showed their appreciation for her in a 2007 documentary titled Come back Kate. According to the Guardian, the documentary follows Bush’s loyal fan base during the singer’s hiatus from 1993 to 2005. Each fan talks about their special relationship with Bush.
It also follows a woman who had never heard of Bush as she becomes an act of tribute to Kate Bush. According to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia, some of Bush’s loyal fans celebrate her birthday on a beach in the south of England, and “after a silence of 12 years, rumors are starting to swirl: Kate is coming back.”
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Some of Bush’s loyal fans also replayed his music video for “Wuthering Heights” for years.
In 2013, collective performance Shambush! attempted to set an unofficial world record for the most people impersonating Bush in one place (according to the Guardian). from Shambush The Ultimate Kate Bush Experience was part of the Brighton Fringe festival. 300 of Bush’s loyal male and female fans posed as her to replay her music video for “Wuthering Heights” in Brighton’s Stanmer Park.
The experience inspired The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever, which is held annually around the world. It was first held in 2016. Shabush! organized the one in Melbourne, Australia. “The best thing about being Kate Bush is the freedom to express yourself. The freedom to be yourself,” event organizer Adam Francis told the Sydney Morning Herald.
That year, fans from Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney and Hobart also took part. There were also events in Berlin, Oslo, Montreal, Tel Aviv, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Wellington.
In 2018, the event happened all over the world again, but this year was special. It was the 40th anniversary of “Wuthering Heights”. Hundreds of loyal Bush fans danced in red dresses in Sheffield, Berlin, Melbourne, San Francisco, Sydney, Gothenburg, Dublin and more.
Sheffield event organizer Linda Ball told the BBC: “It was a great day. There was a lot of drama and expressive movement. We had professional dancers up front to do the routine, although there were plenty of hardcore fans who clearly knew the moves anyway.
“This has never been done before in the North of England so I thought wow, if we could pull this off and do it, what a memorable thing to be a part of. We wanted it to be inclusive and it was. There were men, women and children who joined us. It was fabulous.
The most turbulent day ever is still happening around the world.
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Some fans aren’t happy that younger generations are discovering his music on ‘Stranger Things’
Bush’s music reaches younger audiences through stranger things 4. His 1985 song “Running Up That Hill” is an important part of the season’s story. However, some of Bush’s loyal fans are not happy. They don’t like their niche singer going mainstream and don’t like younger generations discovering her through stranger things of all places.
A fan on Twitter wrote that he was disgusted that fans are now calling Bush’s music the “Stranger Things songs”. Another fan pointed out that Bush’s music isn’t full of (now) mainstream hits like “Running Up That Hill.” They wrote“I can’t wait for all the kids who find out about Kate Bush through weird things to check her spotify, put on her latest album and listen to a 14 minute song about having sex with a snowman.”
Another one wrote“Kate Bush didn’t traverse dizzying heights, ran up that hill to make a deal with God and yelled babooshka for you to find out all about her in 2022!”
Meanwhile, another loyal fan job a photo of two roller coaster carts passing each other, one carrying a group of angry zombies and the other carrying ordinary people. They captioned the photo, “Teenagers discovering Kate Bush via Stranger Things meeting the coalition of witches, ex-Goths and Sylvia Plath-reading gays who have quenched her all their lives.”
Bush has an army of fans. Bush’s most loyal and longtime fans love her because she’s not mainstream. She’s a foreigner, like them. Now, because of stranger things, the world that Bush painted for them is no longer theirs. Bush might like his music to reach new audiences, but his loyal fanbase would rather it stay in obscurity.
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