DATE: Monday, September 15, 1997            TAG: 9709150042

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Music Review 

SOURCE: BY SUE VANHECKE, CORRESPONDENT 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   35 lines

INXS SINGER THRILLS NORFOLK PACKED HOUSE TO EXCESS

Fifteen years just fell away Saturday night when INXS launched into the questing strains of ``Don't Change,'' its early 1980s college rock smash.

It was the funk-pop hits of the Australian band's '80s heyday, in fact, that brought the packed Boathouse audience to rapture, causing kinetic frontman Michael Hutchence to dub the night ``a religious experience.''

The singer - whose undeniable sex appeal won him legions of teen-age female fans when the band broke big with 1987's ``Kick'' album - arrived onstage in a three-piece suit, tie and sunglasses, and conducted himself with all the mesmerizing charisma of a shaman.

Vamping in fine Mick Jagger style and eventually stripping down to just his clingy undershirt and trousers, Hutchence pranced and cavorted onstage and swung himself up into the rafters for the pulsing songs from the vibrant new album ``Elegantly Wasted.''

He crawled atop speaker cabinets for old favorites ``Need You Tonight'' and ``Mediate,'' and, for ``Kick's'' grandiose ballad, ``Never Tear Us Apart,'' waded through the delighted crowd to keen and croon from the rear of the building.

The rest of the sextet, joined by a pair of female backup vocalists, supplied the uncontainable, sweat-soaked Hutchence a solid grounding, losing most of last decade's shiny synthesizer sounds in favor of beefy guitars and the trademark sinewy saxophones of Kirk Pengilly.

The Honeydogs, who opened the show, were a competent combo reminiscent of Material Issue or School Of Fish: four nice guys playing nice pop tunes with a Beatles-meets-Bowie patina.

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