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Kate Bush 1979 Christmas special (featuring Peter Gabriel) on BBC4 tonight!!!!
cathrin
Posts: 4,968 Forum Member
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12.10 tonight BBC4. I'm so excited about seeing this again! Haven't seen it since it was first shown 30 years ago. If I remember rightly, it includes some dramatised performances of songs from Never For Ever, and a duet with Peter Gabriel. Yippeee! 
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I was so close to missing it myself...only just spotted it tucked away in the tiny print in the listings magazine! I would have been devastated to miss it!
wonder if his old mate from Genesis ever showed him how to play I suppose if your childhood friend is Tony Banks you will pick up on a few things
A truly astounding performance.
Talent, grace and class of the highest order.
And Peter Gabriel looks so young and baby faced:p
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUiSZdA3w9Y
I loved seeing all tonights archive shows. I had no idea any of it was on until I stumbled across it in the EPG, so it's a lovely surprise but I'm sure it would of got a lot more viewers with some promotion on the bigger BBC channels.
Astonishing.
Does she live in Wiltshire somewhere?.
That track is amongst my ten favourite singles. It's somehow poignant and uplifting at the same time!
Those awful dance routines, cross between Pans People and PlayAway, the literal take on the songs, those naff video clips - it becomes a bit jarring when you have these songs of incredible sophistication but I guess it was a much more innocent time.
But it was still good fun to watch, especially this version of DWBMA, one of my personal favourites.
Vastly under estimated British talent.
My first love.( dont tell my wife)
I hope it is repeated. :-(
Phew it will be on the iplayer soon.
You've got to be kidding.
1979 was a time where many people were probably a lot more politically and socially aware than many people are today. You think that people were somehow 'innocent' compared to now?
In 30 years time from now you'll probably have people feeling superior and looking back at 2009 describing it as being an 'innocent time'.
I'd say that there's a higher frequency of stuff which you'd call cheesey going on right now but you probably can't see it because you're in the middle of it.
I can't believe that somebody in 2009 is looking back at something from a few decades ago calling it cheesey as though 2009 is somehow NOT cheesey in any way at all.
I suppose if you think that everything artistically and musically now has to be slick and take itself very seriously then I can see why you may think that.
Some of those of us who were around at the time thought her dance routines were naff and cheesy. Pan's People were of the same icky ilk.
First time she was on TOTP singing "Wuthering Heights" she bottled out of the dance thing and just wandered around in a black outfit if I remember correctly. Wish she had always bottled out myself.
She went down downhill from there - 'running down that hill' ?
It wasn't unusual then to prepare special programmes of quality or surprise interest shown on Xmas Day evening TV, although this was a one-off of its kind. There were hardly any repeats (apart from The Great Escape) and TV was well worth watching compared to the dismal quality and endless repeats shown over the Xmas period over the past decade and more. Programme makers have given up making the effort now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw2EOnbFofE
(in your words she bottled out of dancing, but she sang live on totp 1979 which was a bit of a rarity in itself, and she didn't bottle out of dancing in the later tour did she!)
The other 2 appearances, not sure in what order are at the piano, again singing live:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLgjIAzpvqU
and one dancing in the white dress, but lip synching.
The first one was repeated for Kate's fourth TOTP 'appearance'.
I love BBC4, shows some great stuff these days.
I agree about the dancing but that was a big part of her act, too much like stage school for me but it did make more of the show for all that. I 'liked' the bit in one song where a table got knocked over but Kate had to pick it up and move it again as it was in the line of the camera.
Nice to see an early glimpse of Peter Gabriel too but no idea what he was singing, I thought he'd play Solsbury Hill as that was his best know Christmas song.
Quote from 'The Metro' (free London newspaper) reviewing Kate's part of the 'Queens of British Pop' documentary:
"You only had to hear Michael Aspel ask Kate Bush 'one last question about your hair' to know why the Holy Babooshka, Britain's greatest singer-songwriter, kissed the media circus goodbye"