PMANCHESTER@CCMAIL.SUNYSB.EDU (Peter Byrne Manchester) (02/20/91)
It's exciting to see the Tour of Life making waves again through the
renewed availability of the "Live at Hammersmith" tape. That tape was my
first encounter with KB, and has permanently shaped my response to her work.
A buddy played it for me starting with "Feel It," and by the time we got half
way through "Kite" my previous life was over. I can play that tape in my soul
nearly frame by frame. I thought I'd pass along a few observations about the
performances.
"James and the Cold Gun" always left me speechless, but for a while at
first the pantomime over the long rave-up at the end gave me problems. It
seemed to extend the obvious far too long, to be self-indulgent. Then a
dancer friend pointed out to me the complexity of the choreographical concept.
In this company we need not belabor the woman's phallic fixation. denial, and
anger, established so affectingly during the song. Just note that in the
finale' the first gunslinger appears stage right. It takes the woman quite a
lot of effort to get him down, finish him off. She reacts with complicated
emotion, finally lament. The second enters stage left. Now she knows what
she is about; she gets him off more quickly, and then exults. BUT! then one
appears OUT OF HER OWN ORIFICE! Down HER ramp! Now it's cosmic, and the end
is apocalyptic. She shoots him down, the band, the audience, the universe!
During 1985 and 1986, the late lamented USA Network "Nightflight"
played LaH so often they virtually put it in the public domain--except for the
fact that they deleted "Wow" to make room for extra ads. I have always found
it -interesting- (NB special KB technical concept) that this deletion made
that performance of "Wow" very special goods indeed. The same basic
choreographical concept is executed in the version on "The Single File," but
the lighting isn't nearly so magical, and that stupid purple tube dress she
wears there turns the sex-and-gender send-up into slapstick. On the LaH tape
Kate is Total Goddess; I cannot think of anywhere else she has appeared so
catastrophically beautiful. "Wow" on "The Whole Story" seems almost
deliberately to deny us the full vision.
What drove me most crazy for many months after I had obtained my own
copy of LaH was that I couldn't tell what Kate Bush LOOKED like! Her
investment as performer in the persona singing each song was so complete and
so accomplished that she would look altogether different to me from song to
song. How could the neurotically tense singer of "Violin" be the same being
as the liquid lady of "Moving"? The street-strut rocker of "Heartbrake" the
same singer as the guileless schoolgirl of "Feel It"?
That moment at the top of the ramp at the end of the show that others
have commented on recently, when Kate sets down the flowers, and, unable to
get enough of her whole body into her waves to the audience in return for
their admiring love, leaps into the air in girlish abandon, moves us because
there, finally, she appears as herself.
This woman is no small phenomenon.
............................................................................
Peter Manchester
"C'mon, we all sing!" pmanches@sbccmail (BITNET)
pmanchester@ccmail.sunysb.edu (INTERNET)
nrc@cbema.att.COM (Neal R Caldwell, Ii) (02/20/91)
In article <C641E80B0060BDA5@ccmail.sunysb.edu>, by PMANCHESTER@CCMAIL.SUNYSB.EDU (Peter Byrne Manchester) talks about _James and the Cold Gun_: > > In this company we need not belabor the woman's phallic fixation. denial, and > anger, established so affectingly during the song. Just note that in the > finale' the first gunslinger appears stage right. It takes the woman quite a > lot of effort to get him down, finish him off. She reacts with complicated > emotion, finally lament. The second enters stage left. Now she knows what > she is about; she gets him off more quickly, and then exults. BUT! then one > appears OUT OF HER OWN ORIFICE! Down HER ramp! Now it's cosmic, and the end > is apocalyptic. She shoots him down, the band, the audience, the universe! Um. I guess that's one way to look at it. Personally, I'd never read quite that much into it. I tend to think that the character in the choreography is male just as in the song itself. > During 1985 and 1986, the late lamented USA Network "Nightflight" > played LaH so often they virtually put it in the public domain--except for I've heard that Nightflight is now back in syndication, although not on U.S.A. > What drove me most crazy for many months after I had obtained my own > copy of LaH was that I couldn't tell what Kate Bush LOOKED like! Her > investment as performer in the persona singing each song was so complete and > so accomplished that she would look altogether different to me from song to > song. How could the neurotically tense singer of "Violin" be the same being > as the liquid lady of "Moving"? The street-strut rocker of "Heartbrake" the > same singer as the guileless schoolgirl of "Feel It"? Kate seems gifted with a tremendously flexible face and early in her career she had no fear whatsoever of using it to pull some pretty amazing mugs. "Don't drive too slowly." Richard Caldwell AT&T Network Systems att!cbnews!nrc n.r.caldwell@att