Cloudbusting @ Norwich Arts Centre

I love and respect her as an artist. I failed to get tickets to see her live a couple years back despite trying with all my might. I started to doubt I'd ever get to see her live. So when Cloudbusting, a tribute to Kate Bush which has been touring the UK for three years was announced at the Arts Centre I thought I'd give it a go. I'm definitely not a fan of cover or tribute bands, and in general would run a mile from this sort of thing. But it was Kate, and I thought I could do it for Kate.

The auditorium was 2/3 full, impressive for a tribute band which is not the usual NAC fare. Mostly a middle aged crew with a few young un's, everyone seemed thrilled to see the show begin with members of the military-jacketed band arriving onstage wafting torches through the gloom. Fake Kate appeared, and sure, she did look a bit like Kate..the untamed hair, the crushed black velvet and lace get-up, the bare feet. Her voice certainly had Kate's range which admittedly is rare, but she didn't have Actual Kate's tone or emotional expression, and often veered off tune. This made me realise just how absolutely spot on Actual Kate's voice always is, swooning and soaring across octaves and complex time changes. Fake Kate did fine on the ballads, but when the pace picked up she struggled a little to keep up. I also hoped there would be some Kate Dancing. You know the sort of thing. But she pretty much stayed still and didn't use the space well at all.

In between songs there was a lot of banter, and I felt a bit like I was on a cruise ship or at a Pontin's show. Actual Kate wouldn't do banter. I bet she hates it. She's far too busy having feelings and thinking about having feelings, and I was drawn out of enjoying the music, closing my eyes and trying to pretend to myself that I was actually at a Actual Kate concert because Fake Kate was smiling and talking about someone she used to babysit for or something and generally hamming it up to the max. The band was really not up to scratch; the drummer incredibly sloppy, and despite the guitarist having approx one million guitars on stage, I didn't really notice his sound in the slightest. Fake Kate mentioned how quiet the audience was..this is Norwich, love, that's normal here..but there was certainly not the singing along, dancing about celebration that in some ways I had expected and hoped for.

Throughout the whole show, there were projections contributed by Kate-inspired video 'artists' around the world. They were, without exception, diabolically bad. The Wedding List had a very odd Sims style dramatisation of the fated wedding story told in the song. For Breathing we're treated to a developing embryo followed by an animation of a country cottage with washing blowing in the wind. Despite these god awful projections, I couldn't stop watching them, and this meant my connection with Fake Kate and her band was patchy at best, and the storytelling aspect of the songs was utterly lost.

There was an unnecessary interval, during which, listening to people around me, I realised everyone else was having a bloody great whale of a time. Someone said "I never thought anyone could sound exactly like Kate but she does". No, she didn't. We returned to The Man With The Child In His Eyes which is a success, making the most of the silences in the song with just keyboard and vocals, but Don't Give Up, one of the most heartbreakingly perfect duets in the world ever, was torn apart and stamped on by appalling vocals from the bass player doing Peter Gabriel's part. Absolutely dreadful. If you can't sound like Gabriel, don't bother trying.

They played album tracks as well as the hits during the evening, which showed some foresight as a decision, and there was a good spread between albums. However, this gig reminded me of just how talented and unique Actual Kate Bush is. It also reminded me why I never go see tribute acts. Sorry. Actual Kate is my only master.