Singer joins growing backlash against filming performances, telling fans she wants to 'have contact with you as an audience'

The last time she took to the stage, the prototype of the mobile phone was undergoing its first trials. And as she emerges from her 35-year time capsule to perform once again, singer Kate Bush is faced with a different world.

While most concerts are now aglow with phones and tablets, Bush is taking a stand against fans watching her shows through the digital veil of a screen.

In the runup to her highly anticipated series of concerts at the Hammersmith Apollo, Bush has released a statement appealing to her fans to put down their mobile phones at her gigs.

It would "mean a great deal to me", she wrote, if people refrained from using their phones, cameras and tablets and simply enjoyed the music.

Bush wrote on her website: "I have a request for all of you who are coming to the shows. We have purposefully chosen an intimate theatre setting rather than a large venue or stadium. It would mean a great deal to me if you would please refrain from taking photos or filming during the shows.

"I very much want to have contact with you as an audience, not with iPhones, iPads or cameras. I know it's a lot to ask but it would allow us to all share in the experience together."

With her love of theatrics and opulent costumes, Bush's keenness to stop fans uploading grainy footage to YouTube could also be an attempt to keep the show a surprise for the thousands of fans who have purchased tickets for the 22 dates she is playing in September. So far, details of the show, entitled Before the Dawn, have remained secret with Bush keen for it to remain that way. Her 1979 show included 13 performers, 17 costume changes and 24 songs.

Roger Daltrey said fans who spent gigs staring at their phone screens were 'weird'. Photograph: Kc Alfred/Reuters

Bush, 56, is not the first to speak out against the detrimental effect of the presence of phones at concerts, with numerous artists berating their fans for experiencing live music through the filter of a screen.

The Who frontman Roger Daltrey recently said it was "weird" that people did not have their mind on the show when they had gone to a performance and were concentrating on staring at the screen rather than the artist on stage.

He said: "I feel sorry for them, I really feel sorry for them. Looking at life through a screen and not being in the moment totally – if you're doing that, you're 50% there, right? It's weird. I find it weird."

Last year, Beyoncé berated one her fans at a gig for filming. "You can't even sing because you're too busy taping," Beyoncé told him. "I'm right in your face, baby. You gotta seize this moment. Put that damn camera down!"

The debate around the presence of phones at live events is not restricted to music, with sport fans equally vocal on the subject. On Monday, Dutch fans at PSV Eindhoven launched a vehement protest against the introduction of Wi-Fi in their stadium, holding up banners such as "Fuck Wi-Fi, support the team," "You can sit at home," and "Stand united", while Manchester United have also told fans to leave their "large electronic devices" at home, prohibiting filming on tablets in Old Trafford this season.

Jarvis Cocker has previously criticised phone-wielders in the audience for driving him "insane at concerts", adding: "It seems stupid to have something happening in front of you and look at it on a screen that's smaller than the size of a cigarette packet. If anything, it undermines the experience because it seemed like a really good moment, and now I can see it were crap. It's like wedding videos."

Johnny Marr told NME last year that it meant that fans missed out on the sensory experience of live music in their desperation to document the event for later.

"To stand and just be looking at it through your phone is a completely wasted opportunity. You know, I don't mean to be unkind but I think you should put your phone down because you're just being a dick, really, just enjoy the gig because it's a better … it's a dick job, filming the show. Let someone else be the dick and watch it on YouTube," he said.

"That's one of the things about gigs, it's taking in what's going on with the people around you, and watching it on a little screen - it's [a] waste of time."

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs resorted to putting up a sign at one of their venues, pleading with fans to pocket their technology. It read: "Please do not watch the show through a screen on your smart device/camera. Put that shit away as a courtesy to the person behind you, and to Nick, Karen and Brian."

It has even filtered into the world of classical music, with one of the world's leading pianists surprising concert-goers in June last year when he stormed off stage because a fan was filming his performance on a smartphone.

Krystian Zimerman returned moments later and declared: "The destruction of music because of YouTube is enormous."

But Sam Watt of Vyclone, a phone app that encourages audiences to film at concerts and then brings together the footage to create a crowd-sourced video of the event, said that such artists were fighting a losing battle and that filming at concerts enhanced rather than detracted from the experience.

"Fans filming is now part of the concert experience, that is a just a fact, so we take that footage that people are filming at concerts through the app, they upload it onto the app, and then it comes back to them mixed together with everybody else who was filming. You end up with really fantastic content," he said.

"Artists should absolutely be embracing the filming at concerts and I can't see a world where artists who aren't embracing it are going to be able to carry on.

"I know it is quite a controversial subject, but in a year or two when everyone is filming, it is going to be hard for them to ignore and not utilise that content without suffering themselves."

Since they launched the technology in 2012, major musicians have now utilised the technology, he said, with Vyclone counting Ed Sheeran, Madonna, Jason Mraz and Weezer among those who have used their app to create videos of their own concerts, often vocally encouraging fans to film certain songs during their live sets.

Watt continued: "For the artists we work with, it enables them to have this content and see the fans are connecting and embracing and almost becoming part of the show. It definitely is part of the concert experience and filming at gigs is something people are going to have to get used to.

"Our overall thinking is that filming at concerts adds to the experience, rather than taking away from it and I think if Kate Bush came round for a cup of tea, we could have a really interesting discussion about this and we might be able to win her round," he added. "Knowing that people are going to film and want those memories is really important because it is probably going to hit them on the head in the future if they say to everyone they can't film. You've got to embrace it."