FEATURE:
Dutch Courage
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at The Efteling, The Netherlands, in 1978
Looking Back at the 1978 Efteling T.V. Special
___________
FOR this feature…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush on the Dutch T.V. show, TopPop, in 1978
I am going back to 1978. I write a lot about The Kick Inside and Kate Bush’s amazing debut of that year. The reason for going back to 1978 was to highlight a T.V. appearance from Bush that, I think, too quite a lot of courage. Although she did a series of T.V. interviews and performances around the world that year, I think that her appearance from the Efteling amusement park in The Netherlands was one of her biggest. Quite a long live performance and concept, maybe it planted the seeds for her 1979 extravaganza, The Tour of Life. Whilst the production values and sets are not as professional and exciting as we saw in that tour, I am interested in the TROS broadcast. Before going on, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia gives us some details and breakdown:
“On 12 May 1978 at 7.12pm, the Dutch broadcaster TROS broadcast a 20 minute Kate Bush television special, recorded at the Dutch amusement park Efteling. On 10 May 1978, Efteling was ready to open the Haunted Castle, the most expensive attraction it had ever constructed, and they wanted to promote it as much as they could. Ton van der Ven, who designed the castle, appeared in a popular talk show and in April a documentary featuring the Haunted Castle was made by filmmaker Rien van Wijk, who was eager to shoot in the latest attraction before it officially opened. Kate, who just had a big hit with Wuthering Heights, was approached for a television special that would promote both Efteling and her songs. The special was filmed in April, a month before the official opening of the castle.
The special consists of six songs, each filmed in different locations:
Moving was filmed on the square in front of the castle.
Wuthering Heights has Kate dancing around inside the main show of the castle. A smoke machine is used for added effect.
Them heavy people was filmed on three locations: inside the main show in the attic; at the entrance of the main show with the oriental ghost; and outside before the entrance of the cave which is part of another attraction, the Indian Waterlillies.
The Man With The Child In His Eyes was recorded at the side of the lake with the gondolettas
Strange Phenomena has Kate walking around in the dark passages of the castle
The Kick Inside was filmed on the lake, with Kate lying in a death-barge. At the end of the song, she sails slowly down a placid river, evoking images of Elaine and The Lady of Shalott, classic poetical figures of Arthurian legend.
The special starts with a tombstone bearing the name Kate Bush. This tombstone was the subject of a lot of speculation among Dutch Kate Bush fans, since it disappeared from view between 1978 and 2003. The tombstone suddenly resurfaced in 2003 at the 25th anniversary of the Haunted Castle, and stood there at the entrance. Since 2007 the tombstone can be seen in the catacombs of the main show in the castle.
Light designer Bert Klos recounted about the recording of the special in 2014. "They were very heady days. There were so many different locations and I wanted to support the actions of Bush as well as possible with light. She was a short woman with a thin voice, but very professional. That woman couldn't be stopped, she just kept on going. When we wanted to sit down for a while, she already stood up and said: 'come on guys!'. I can even recall a soundman tripping across his own feet from sleep at 1am!" Henk Gulikers, who did camera during these days, recalled: "We didn't sleep until 3am and at 6.30am we were back around the table with Kate and a cup of tea. We stayed in Hotel De Swaen in Oisterwijk. I got an LP from her, on which she'd written: 'For dear Henk, the one who is very much alive behind the dead camera.' Very nice, I liked that. Apparently she felt very much at ease”.
I might do a feature down the line of Bush’s T.V. live appearances in 1978. She stopped performing on television many years ago. She featured on Top of the Pops through the years, though the last time was when she did a lipsynch performance of And So Is Love (The Red Shoes) in 1994, dressed in black, together with two female backing singers. I think that Bush probably tired of T.V. long before the 1990s - so I think that it is interesting looking back at the 1970s and 1980s.
During such an intense promotional campaign – The Kick Inside was released in February 1978 -, it is wonderful that she gave so much of her time in the middle of a tiring whirlwind of T.V. and media interviews. Whilst she was there to promote the Dutch amusement park, it was a chance for new audience members and viewers to discover Bush. I think that, in terms of ramping up the promotion of Bush and her debut album, the Efteling special was the first big step. That was in May 1978. On 18th June, Bush performed Moving to an audience of 11,000 people at the Nippon Budokan for the seventh Tokyo Music Festival. For someone who was not a fan of travelling and would have been exhausted come June, I think that Bush is captivating during her Efteling special. I am fascinated by the year 1978 and everything Kate Bush undertook! There must have been this tussle between wanting to get out to her fans and promote her music and the demands and intense itinerary of EMI. Keen to show off their young star and get her music to as many nations as possible, Bush is remarkably committed and professional through a hectic year – considering she turned twenty in July 1978, she was still incredibly young! Although the video quality is not overly-great, I have watched her ‘set’ from Efteling. It is one that is, in equal parts, fantastic, odd and entrancing! If you have not seen it then go and check it out. Her time in The Netherlands in 1978 definitely resulted in…
A really interesting television appearance.