Everyone was in high spirits on the night of Kylie Minogue’s concert—girls and boys came dressed for a masquerade (think pink feathers, gold sequined dresses and winged headbands), green balloon lightsticks were waving in the dark and each time someone’s eagerly anticipating face was flashed on the double screens, the crowd cheered.
The energy was amazing. And it certainly helped that Minogue took to the stage minutes earlier than we’d expected (the Queen opened the show one hour after the scheduled time in 2008 when she was last here), looking every bit the Greek goddess as she’d intended.
Set against a palatial backdrop of white-washed columns, pillars and cascading stairs, Minogue set the tone for the rest of the show with “Aphrodite,” appearing onstage in a giant golden clamshell while swathed in heavy linen. She was every bit the agile and sprightly pop pixie we’d always remembered, even though it’s been years and then some since we started jiving to her palpable energy in “I Should Be So Lucky,” which she later performed in acoustic format while prancing about in a tank top and skimpy shorts. She also performed “Better Than Today” and “Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love)” from her latest album Aphrodite, which the crowd was plainly still unfamiliar with but gamely sang along to anyway. It was when she brought back all the years of disco with “Spinning Around,” a rock version of club favorite “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” and even a cabaret spoof of “Slow” that things really started to heat up at the full-house venue.
While we were extremely impressed by the night’s setlist (Minogue even did a quickie of gay anthem “The Locomotion” and gave us a blast of heart-wrenching “I Believe In You”), what really made our jaw drop was the use of multimedia throughout the concert. The audience was treated to almost 3D projections of magical blue waters (so real it made us unbelievably thirsty), sexy synchronized (female) swimmers and men—massive, perfectly sculpted, toast brown (and sometimes black and shiny) men, all of whom were practically nude; all of whom looked like they’d just stepped out of a makeover in Athens. Gay, straight, bi—who the hell cares. Each time the adoring princess stepped backstage for a quick wardrobe change, everyone secretly thanked her and feasted on the giant screens (which as it happens, was quite often).
And as if the sexual connotations throughout the two and a half hour concert were not enough, Minogue just had to wave us goodbye with “On a Night Like This” and “All the Lovers” (if you’d seen the music video, you’d know exactly what we’re talking about).
Let’s just say we think a lot of people barely slept that night.
If you missed it, see this video of what went down (posted on Kylie Minogue’s official Youtube channel).
