FEATURE:
Time and Time Again, Line and Line Again
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush performs Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) on the German T.V. program. Peter's Pop Show, in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: ZIK Images/United Archives via Getty Images
Kate Bush and the Gravitas of Her Television Appearances
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THE reason for going down this avenue…
is that, a couple of weeks back, there was this T.V. special about ABBA. As part of the special, a clip played of Kate Bush being introduced by Benny and Björn from the group. She was performing the single, Wow (from her 1978 album, Lionheart). It is a wonderful captivating performance that, the more you watch it, the more you are stunned by it! Whether it was miming a song or singing a live vocal, Bush always amazed people with her T.V. performances. I think the last time she did sing on T.V. would have been around 1994. From 1978 until then, she appeared on a number of different shows. I may go into a bit more depth and detail. Especially in the first couple of years of her career, Bush was on a variety of T.V. shows around the world. In 1979, she embarked on her first extensive tour experience with The Tour of Life. I think, before then, T.V. slots was her live experience; a chance to sing her songs in front of an audience and work out a routine. As good as they sound on the albums, I guess Bush was always thinking how her songs could be translated and come to life in a more physical and visual way. I have seen various videos of Bush performing in 1978 and 1979.
Because of the success of her debut single, Wuthering Heights, she was on Top of the Pops several times. She had to perform minus a band, as show rules meant a solo artist had to perform with their house band. Having to sing to an awful recorded track, Bush had a nightmare the first time she was on the show on 16th February, 1978. That bad first experience did affect the regularity she performed on the show (16th February, 1978: Kate performs Wuthering Heights. Kate described it as "a bloody awful performance". 9th March, 1978: Kate performs Wuthering Heights for the second time, dressed in a white nightgown. 16th March, 1978: Kate performs Wuthering Heights for the third time, seated at the piano. 23rd March, 1978: Kate performs Wuthering Heights for the fourth time, wearing a long black dress. 30th March, 1978: Kate performs Wuthering Heights for the fifth time. 22nd March, 1979: Kate performs Wow. 22nd August, 1985: Kate performs Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). 6th March, 1986: Kate performs Hounds of Love. 17th November, 1994: Kate does a lip-synch performance of And So Is Love, dressed in black, together with two female backing singers). I think some of her Top of the Pops performances rank alongside some of the best ever. She is always so entrancing and beguiling!
I am going to come to some other T.V. performances that I especially like. I found a great article that spotlighted Bush’s T.V appetences between 1978-1982. A hectic and itinerant stage of her career, it is amazing to watch her delivering various songs on some very strange and memorable shows:
“Unlike virtually everyone else, Kate Bush has achieved success and impact without doing many live shows. The enigmatic artist performed just one concert tour in 1979 before taking an extended hiatus from playing live until 2014. The few concerts she did perform were enormous undertakings combining music, choreography, extensive costume and set changes, and cutting edge technology to an extent that made maintaining her singular vision difficult.
Luckily, while these performances were few and far between, a wealth of promotional television appearances exist online for fans to dive into the wonderful world of Kate Bush. Here are a few of our favorites:
Wuthering Heights (1978)
Let’s start with Kate’s debut single filmed for the Dutch TV program TOPPOP. This video captures Kate at her most expressive with some interesting set design.
Moving (1978)
This was filmed during an exhaustive six month promotional campaign to back The Kick Inside. Bush was met with open arms in Japan and this performance marked her first in front of a large audience. 11,000 watched this beautiful performance of “Moving” with over 33 million viewers on television. “Moving” would become a huge hit for Bush in Japan.
Them Heavy People (1978)
Another performance from Bush’s first trip to Japan and a very strange one at that. This rendition for a TV program called Sound in S was recorded variety show style with television personalities taking over vocal duties and Kate jumping in at the end to dance… Bush probably had very little control over this performance, but it’s pretty fun to watch.
Kashka from Baghdad (1978)
This live performance taken from the children’s television program Ask Aspel sees Bush at her most intimate and direct with just solo piano and voice. There’s somehow still a certain magical quality to this performance even without the costumes and sets.
Looking good feeling fit (1981)
Kate breaks down her fitness tips and explains her love for dance while we watch her practice her routine for Sat on Your Lap on a BBC show about exercise and nutrition.
The Dreaming (1982)
Taken from Na sowas! a German TV show. The producers strangely decided to superimpose a live image of an iguana into the background of the performance, bringing a very odd but also very great spin on the performance. This version is hilariously known as the “Giant Lizard” version”.
Prior to looking ahead, Far Out Magazine published an article last year where they looked back at Kate Bush’s very first T.V. appearance:
“In the rain-soaked months of February 1978, Kate Bush—at the time a fresh-faced 19-year-old with a hit single under her belt—made her first television appearance to perform the wondrous hit single ‘Wuthering Heights’ on German TV show Bios Bahnhof.
The performance was a mark of not only the artist’s incredible talent but the huge journey she’d been on, even at 19, to get to where she was. A consummate performer at such a young age she effortlessly delivers a spellbinding performance of one of the most brilliant alternative pop songs ever written.
Her appearance on the show coincided with the show’s first ever episode. Filmed in Cologne, Germany at an old train depot, the show was hosted by classical music and opera fan Alfred Biolek. It was he who when he found himself on the lookout for acts at the EMI offices caught the unmistakable sound of Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ playing through the speaker. He stopped in his tracks and enquired about the artist behind such a song. That artist was Kate Bush.
She set about recording her debut LP in August 1977 with a possible release date of the chosen single from the album ‘Wuthering Heights’ slated for November 4th 1977. But EMI got cold feet, fearing that it would be lost in the Christmas flurry and delayed the release until 20th January 1978.
As was the way in the seventies, by now the radio station like Capital Radio in London had the promo record and, against the will of EMI, they played it on air. They played it as much as they could, in fact. The people listening almost instantly fell in love with Kate Bush, besotted by her unique literary charm. Her single would go on to become the first record written and performed entirely by a woman to reach number 1 in the UK charts, an astounding feat for such a young artist.
So with radio play under her belt, interviews with the biggest magazines in the industry on the way, Kate Bush made her way to Germany to appear on Bio’s Bahnhof to perform a and b sides of her now well-established single. ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Kite’ are performed to an incredibly gorgeous level with Bush displaying all of the credentials that would see her become one of music’s most essential artists.
While radio shows and the odd interview were great for Bush in a media sense they lacked the opportunity for her to make a visual impact as well as through her music. It was on television and in front of an audience that she could do her best work, and she knew it.
It meant when this opportunity arose for Bush’s first performance on television arose she jumped at the chance with a theatrically charged rendition of what would become her most legendary hit. As she cleverly performed her new hit single in the same red dress which would feature in her notorious video, it was clear; from here on out, Kate Bush was an icon”.
Apologies if this is a little scattershot in terms of chronology! I am remembering articles and performances as I go along! As Far Out Magazine said, Bush was already an icon because of that first T.V. live appearance. The fact that she got a chance to perform to a large audience and articulate a song like Wuthering Heights for T.V. meant that she reached a lot of new people. Her choreography and routines were always so spellbinding. The gravitas with which she performed is undeniable – in the sense she is completely in control and draws you in! Keeping with Far Out Magazine, and they spotlighted Bush’s performance on SNL in the U.S. in 1978. A year which saw her performance in the U.K., Europe and the U.S., she managed to shoulder jetlag and unimaginable tiredness with these staggering performances. America would not have known what hit them!
“The wondrous talent of Kate Bush has a worldwide fandom but it started very deeply in British culture. It meant that taking the leap across the pond was a risky and ultimately successful chance to take. Even recently one half of rap group Outkast, the rapper Big Boi, confirmed that his favourite ‘verse’ wasn’t from Jay-Z or Tupac Shakur but none other than Kate Bush.
It’s odd, then, that the only TV appearance Bush has made across the pond comes from 1978 when she appeared on the acclaimed TV show Saturday Night Live and delivered perhaps one of her most outstanding performances. SNL, as it is more affectionately known, has been a stalwart of late-night television ever since the show broadcast in 1975 and Bush turned it on when she arrived on stage.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush performing The Man with the Child in His Eyes on SNL in 1978
The episode with Bush was hosted by none other than Monty Python’s Eric Idle and as is customary, the comedian gave an intro for the singer’s first performance. While the vast majority of these intros are pleasant and warm, Idle added a little extra sparkle into his introduction and perhaps hinted that he, as much of the rest of Britain, was proud but protective of Kate. “This is her first time on American television, she’s very wonderful. Will you please welcome Kate Bush!”
He needn’t have worried as what transpired was a typically theatrical performance from Bush, who not only commanded the stage but also expressed her song and delivered a showstopping physical showing of her expression.
Somehow, Bush managed to soften the audience with every breath she took. As soon as the camera panned toward the singer delivering the second single from her debut LP, ‘The Man With The Child In His Eyes’, a proverbial crack developed across the United States. She performed the song atop an all-black piano in a sparkling gold jumpsuit, Bush was making a statement.
It was a bit of a mad whirlwind for those first few career years at least! Things did quiet in terms of T.V. appetences after 1982. NME produced a guide containing videos of Bush performing on T.V. I forgot to mention that she performed in Australia in 1978. Her routine of Hammer Horror (from Lionheart) on 17th October is sensational!
On 21st December, Bush’s Christmas Special of 1979 was one of the biggest televisual moments. Not necessarily promoting an album, this was her playing a selection of her songs. With special guest Peter Gabriel, though not as extravagant, sensational and high-concept as The Tour of Life, there are some interesting routines and wonderful vocals. The Wedding List (from 1980’s Never for Ever) got an especially epic routine (complete with her brother, Paddy, playing the part of a vicar and a gunman that she hunts down and shoots!). Other highlights include Bush going back to Germany (NME: “September 23 1982, Bush travels to Munich to sing ‘The Dreaming’ on German TV, in a performance that went down in infamy as “the giant iguana version”) and her performing Elton John’s Rocket Man (“July 28 1991, Bush covers Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’ on BBC’s Wogan in her last truly live performance. Till August 2014, that is…”). I think one of my favourite T.V. performances of hers was on 22nd August, 1985. She was on the BBC’s Wogan and Top of the Pops performing Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). That ABBA-introduced performance of Wow is definitely one of the best. I love her 1980 performance on the Dutch show, Veronica Totaal. Even more spectacular is her 1978 special on Dutch T.V. from the newly-opened amusement park, The Efteling.
Every time she performed on T.V., the watching public got something completely new. I have seen her perform Them Heavy People a few times. Each routine is different. The same goes for Wuthering Heights on Top of the Pops. It is a shame there were not more T.V. appetences between, say, 1985 and 1994. After her studio album, The Red Shoes, came out in 1993, Bush wound down T.V. publicity significantly. She has released three albums since then without any T.V. performances. Luckily, people did get to see her perform many of her tracks live during the 2014 Before the Dawn residency in Hammersmith. Maybe T.V. interviews and live appearances became wearisome. I can only imagine how brutal the touring schedule was for her! 1978 was particularly busy - though the success of Hounds of Love in 1985 and The Sensual World in 1989 (this performance of This Woman’s Work on Wogan is gorgeous!) meant Bush did feature on a variety of T.V. shows. Iconic, unusual, gorgeous, physical, theatrical and memorable, Kate Bush’s live performances on T.V. shows around the world really do stand out! In spite of some grainy videos on YouTube, you can tell how good she was! It was not only her dancing and vocals that were sensational. Her mannerisms, facial expressions and the way she commanded the stage and audience was also so brilliant! Every time she was before a T.V. camera performing one of her songs, Kate Bush (and her band) was…
ALWAYS so stunning and unique.