Kylie Minogue at London’s O2 Arena, review: ‘Pop’s golden girl delivers her best show yet’
"Wow indeed".
By Will Stroude
Words: Simon Button
Golden girl wow, wow, wow, wows fans on latest UK and Europe tour.
Best Kylie tour ever? I’m throwing my cowboy hat in the ring and saying it has to be this current one. I’ve seen every Kylie tour but have never seen her so relaxed. Stripped of showgirl headresses, flying horses and overly elaborate costume, Country Kylie is having the yee-hah time of her life.
New album Golden finds the Princess of Pop kicking back and having a good ole hootenanny and that’s what this show is all about too. You can gripe about the fact that all you get from the very early years is ‘The Loco-Motion’ and a slowed-down ‘Wouldn’t Change A Thing’ and ‘Especially For You’, but then you also get ‘Spinning Around’ and ‘Wow’ and a dark and edgy ‘Confide in Me’.
Oh and you get, in my opinion, the best ever Kylie single in ‘Love At First Sight’ and a selection of exuberant songs from the new album including ‘Stop Me From Falling’ and ‘Dancing’.
Kylie camps it up on such staples as ‘Better The Devil You Know’ and ‘Get Outta My Way’, does a rocky new twist on ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’, slows things down for ‘Slow’ and ramps them back up again on ‘Kids’.
When she did Hyde Park a few weeks back she drafted in Jason Donovan and Rick Astley, but she doesn’t need guest stars, just that stronger-than-ever voice of hers, a great backing band and a bunch of dancing boys who sex-up the cowboy look a treat.
The staging, split into no less than six sections, is simpler than before: There are no fancy hydraulics, just projections, and Kylie opts for chiffon dresses, white suits and denim rather than fancy frocks and feathers, although there’s a lot of confetti and, in a section that whisks us back to the heady days of Studio 54, disco balls aplenty.
Madonna did the disco thing in her Confessions show and, of course, she adopted cowgirl chic for both her Music album and Drowned World tour light years before Minogue, who was actually in her very dancey Light Years phase around the same time.
But Kylie’s a very different performer – a happy, smiling hostess throwing a huge party. Fabulous at 50 and as happy as a farmhand at a hoedown, she’s wow, wow, wow, wow indeed.
Rating: 5/5
Kylie tours the UK and Europe until 24 November. For tour dates visit kylie.com. For great deals on tickets and shows click here.