David Rhodes

The first time I ever heard anything by David Rhodes was his guitar playing on Peter Gabriel's 'Games Without Frontiers'. At the time (1980), I was still in my "synthesisers only" phase - making cautious exceptions for Midge Ure and Gary Numan - but I liked the sound, not least because it didn't sound exactly like a guitar.

Rhodes has remained Gabriel's guitarist ever since but he started to crop up playing with other bands I liked: he appeared playing live with Blancmange, Japan and Talk Talk, as well as on albums by Frank Tovey* and loads of people you will have heard of like Tori Amos, Scott Walker, Paul McCartney, Joan Armatrading and plenty of others. But he's not really a session guitarist, as such, I think he contributes to to the writing process both sonically and musically.

And he's clearly a team player, too. If you watch any of Peter Gabriel's live videos, you can see Rhodes gets totally into it. You can see it particularly in this live version of 'In Your Eyes', which is my favorite live recording of Gabriel. (You probably get to see a little more of Rhodes as a guitarist on this version of 'Secret World'.) I love how he's always clearly enjoying himself.

So, I was delighted this evening to find that Rhodes was in Kate Bush's band when I went to see her play live with my good friends, Rob, Ash and John. Characteristically, he joined Bush in going barefoot and he took part enthusiastically in every part of the show whilst still playing brilliantly. Apart from the extraordinary spectacle of 'The Ninth Wave', I particularly enjoyed his contribution to the extended version of 'King Of The Mountain', a song that I love on record but which really came to life tonight.

God knows, it would have been a fantastic event, anyway, but I enjoyed it all the more for David Rhodes being part of it.

PS I know Kate Bush said we weren't to take photos but I thought it would be OK to sneak one before she came on stage.

PPS Two hours later, it occurred to me that Kate Bush sang backing vocals on 'Games Without Frontiers'. How pleasingly circular.

*Thanks, Ash, for telling me this.