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"Bush-Whacked"
KATE BUSH packed London's Palladium with 2000 fans on five consecutive nights and proved to the cynical critics that not only is she an individualistic singer but an accomplished entertainer as well.
It was a Kate Bush that no one had seen before.
The 20-year-old, whose weird sound made her Britain's top female pop star almost overnight and earned her international acclaim, gave one of the most enthralling shows ever seen in London, putting to shame other rock stars who rely on electronic wizardry or just pure volume win over an audience.
The intricately-planned show low was the product of six months' intensive preparation. Kate rehearsed up to 12 hours a day with 15 members of the band, back up singers and dancers.
To a fanfare of publicity, she exploded into London as the most theatrical new singing star in years.
She took over the stage, in fact the whole Palladium, with her first assured step -- a waif-like, elfin figure in tight satin jeans.
Her voice pierced the auditorium with the bewitching quality of the wind shrieking across Wuthering Heights.
Like Liza Minnelli, Kate relied not so much on her voice, which sometimes is quite thin and superficial, but on the drama with which she stages her evocative songs.
Magicians performed balancing tricks on stage, and violinists, dressed like black jesters, pranced in the background as she switched from seductress in blue jeans to gypsy in a scarlet skirt in a "completely hypnotic theatrical ritual.
It was an acrobatic, effervescent melodramatic and sometime times macabre performance -- a 2 1/2 hour spectacle of back projection sets, lighting and theatrical effects, costing $3OO,OOO* which was shared by Kate and record company, EMI.
She left no doubt that theatrically, she could develop into the superstar class.
It is an amazing feat, considering that the world only first knew of her just 16 months ago when she became a household name courtesy of Wuthering Heights, her first single. The song she wrote was inspired by Emily Bronte's romantic novel of the same name, and she sang it in a voice not unlike that of a newly-neutered cat letting the world know of its unfortunate predicament.
-From our London Bureau
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"The pull and the push of it all..." - Kate Bush
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