LIVE AT THE HAMMERSMITH ODEON (VIDEO)

The Tour of Life!

Pure magic returns. If you were one of the few lucky ones to catch Kate's one real tour consider yourself very fortunate. For the rest of us there's this video.

Kate pulls off a monumental and historic performance of live music and dance with some of her best early material. I've watched this many times and still get goosebumps during the opening of "Moving" which is nothing short of pure sensuality. Kate employs a headless mic which allows her total freedom of movement with the other dancers and she is an amazingly talented dancer. Costumes and conceptual pieces are tried at every turn making the evening packed full of surprises. Her band is surprisingly tight and rocking although they are kept in the background visually. The focus is on Kate and the mini-plays that each song turns into.

The set closes with "Wuthering Heights" and again the excitement in the audience and in the viewer's living room is overwhelming. This is one of the greatest live concert experiences on film. If you have any appreciation of Ms. Bush you MUST find a copy of this. Sadly many songs were edited out of the video release and apparently Peter Gabriel appeared with her on a few songs during one show. Hopefully that footage will be added to some future DVD release. 6 stars and I could not be more certain of calling this concert a masterpiece. Essential.

There are two preceding reviews, both with full rating, and also the majority of ratings without reviews are 5/5. This concert film definitely is unique and of big historical importance (since Kate Bush stopped touring after The Tour of Life '79), but I'd be lying if I said I was deeply thrilled by it. And before you ask, yes, Kate Bush was one of my earliest favourites in popular music and she's still very dear to me. This music theatre just doesn't represent what's so great about Kate Bush musically. First off, the visual quality of this DVD is rather blurry but we can ignore that; if one is to feel "the magic", the blurriness won't prevent that. In fact it sort of suits the whole thing. The show opens with 'Moving', the lovely opening track of The Kick Inside, and the green curtain evokes an oceanic atmosphere. In my opinion, the set list is mostly downhill from there, with a couple of further highlights. Even at this point of her discography (two albums only, plus some glimpses into the third one) there would have been many, many better songs.

Silly 'Them Heavy People', awful 'Violin' (definitely the worst track of the then-coming album Never For Ever, and among the worst ones of Kate's songs altogether)... 'Strange Phenomena' is good. 'Hammer Horror' is done as a playback dance number. Actually the interaction between the performers and the audience is pretty much lacking on the whole show. Not even a 'Thank you' between the songs, not to speak of any further talking from Kate. 'Wow' and 'Feel It' are good. Then, another throwaway song in 'Kite'. The extended end doesn't improve it. 'James and the Cold Gun' is the rockiest song here, and the band really comes into life on it. Kate's acting with the shotgun and her shaking victims (rifle being used as a machine gun, accompanied by drum riffs) gets perhaps a bit over the top. Beautiful ballad 'Oh England, My Lionheart' is a great way to cool things down, and the final number is naturally her greatest hit 'Wuthering Heights'. Even though I do feel the magic here and there, three factors make me rate this with three stars only: the set list is all too uneven, the lack of a real live gig feel, and the concentration on dance coreographies that I don't find that fancy. I borrowed the DVD from library and one viewing was enough, but probably I'd buy it if I found it at a reasonable prize from a second hand shop.