Re: Wuthering Heights in the Netherlands, 1978

[Ulrich Grepel <uli@zoodle.robin.de>]

Hi Marion, hi all!

Not sooo long ago (Jan. 15) Marion wrote:
> Some time ago (on 2 Dec 1994...) IED wrote:
>
> > IED has a question for you:  you say you saw Kate perform
> > "Wuthering Heights" on TopPop "a couple of times".  Can you
> > remember whether these were two different performances, or the
> > same one broadcast twice?  Also, do you remember whether Kate
> > was wearing a plain long dark dress or a kind of floral print?
>
> Well, I've been digging in my memory, in my 'archives', and in
> Marcel's video collection (Hi Marcel! :) ), and here's what I
> could find: some pretty useless facts about "Wuthering Heights"
> in the Netherlands, 1978. :-)
[...]
good research!

> And now the important bit. :)  The 'Nationale Hitparade' was the
> one that TopPop used, and according to my listings they showed
> "Wuthering Heights" twice. I seem to recall having seen it more
> often than that - must have been the Efteling special and stuff
> like that.
[...]
> I think there were two different recordings. I have this image
> in my head of Kate dancing on grass, and at one point bending
> backwards until she's standing on hands and feet. Less than a
> second I think, but that image stuck with me for ever since. From
> what I've read in the FAQ and seen from other video's and
> everything this could have been the Rockflix video - could it?
> Does anybody know? I would really love to see this one again...

Well, I don't KNOW this, but it sounds like this is it. In the Rockflix
video Kate did wear a red dress and danced on grass.

> The other appearance was with Kate in the TopPop studio. Here she
> wore a long black dress, with black or grey lace or something.
> There were two images, Kate's face close up, singing, in front,
> the left half of the screen, and Kate dancing, small in the back
> in the upper right corner of the screen. The dancing is quite
> similar to some other versions I've seen, the setting is similar
> to for example the video in the white dress (with the two Kates).

This sounds like the following entry from IED's The Garden:

        11. Wuthering Heights: lip-synch, on an April, 1978 edition of
    German TV programme Top Pop. Note: Ruud says this is a Dutch programme.
    Peter says it is German. In it, Kate simply lip-synchs the song, adding
    her dance routine. Throughout most of the performance Kate's face is
    super-imposed so that it hovers to the left of a shot of her entire
    figure. She wears another of her print, midi-length dresses and
    "seventies" high heels, and her make-up is unmistakably "of its time".

Which would also answer the question in there, namely that TopPop is a
Dutch programme (adding the fact that I never heard of a German programme
called Top Pop [which doesn't mean too much, I was 10 years old then...]).

IED? Marion?

> I think this was the second time, as I remember I was a bit
> disappointed - I really liked the dancing on the grass, and would
> have loved to see that one again.

The Rockflix video is available on a commercial sampler tape, though the
sound quality is quite bad and the video quality isn't very good either.
See FAQ (coming soon) for some details.

Bye,

Uli


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