SameSame.com.au ~ Inside Out Australia

Kylie Or Bust!

Feature, By blagjono, 4th December, 2009

Kylie Minogue, international phenomenon with a career spanning over 20 years has, in the past, been seen by the USA as a mere blip on the entertainment radar. This year Kylie hit the States with her first ever tour. The Americans have never really embraced her like the rest of the globe. Even though she’s won a Grammy in the dance music category and charted well with the Locomotion a life time ago and more recently with Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, I still received blank stares from most Americans as I tried to name drop, when I said we were on tour with Kylie Minogue; more like stalking her really. While Minogue has become more web savvy of late, making contact with the US via YouTube, she’d never presented herself in a full-scale concert, until now.

The For You, For Me, tour was touted as the concert to give back to those die hard American fans who had waited up to 20 years to see her perform. So how was the reception?

Opening night was in Oakland, a small city across the bay of San Francisco, not even as big as Geelong or Newcastle, at a small theatre called The Fox; beautiful, charming and small, a bit like Minogue herself. I arrived about 2 hours before showtime to find an excited queue of fans that had been there for hours vying for front row of the general admission standing room.

The venue could fit about 2000 people. Imagine seeing Kylie perform at The Metro in Sydney or the Metro Palace in Melbourne. The vibe in the air from the fans was electric: there was everything from twinkie guys in full leopard print cat suits to a group of 50 bearish truck drivers, who had driven across states to see Kylie. There were no young girls with mum or families in tow – Kylie’s audience is all the way gay in the USA.

Minogue did not disappoint. It wasn’t some scaled down salon show; it was a full blown, in your face, arena extravaganza in a space not much bigger than some clubs. Laser lights burst into the room as Light Years played, opening the show. The enthusiasm and sheer exhilaration felt like Mardi Gras peaking at 3am.

Kylie’s mum and dad, Carol and Ron, sat near us and watched intently as their daughter descended atop a scaled down version of her silver scull from the X Tour. With mirrorball planets orbiting her head and feathers trailing behind her space costume, Kylie had arrived in the US of A with a wow!

The show was a non-stop roller coaster of hits and themes – a ‘best of’ from her past five tours. While many images on the eight giant LED screens had been seen in past shows, to the yanks it was all new, and the new combinations of elements made it all feel fresh.

The show was quintessential Kylie with all the trimmings – there was sassy burlesque for the Locomotion, Hollywood glamour for the ballads, plenty of disco dazzle, where Kylie aired a new song produced by Jake from Scissor Sisters, the Madonna tribute and of course the obligatory army of helmet wearing dancers. Kylie really seemed to enjoy herself and was as surprised at the enthusiasm from the crowd as I was.

Kylie performed twice in Oakland, to the most rapturous crowds I’ve ever witnessed at a concert, and I’ve seen a few. Perez Hilton was at the second show and raved about it on his blog, describing it as “like a multiple orgasm filled with theatre and drama”.

Next Stop: Vegas, the ultimate showgirl destination. Advertised in town were upcoming shows by Cher and Better Midler at The Colosseum, a much larger venue than Kylie’s Palms Casino… “Kylie is testing the waters,” I think to myself.

Just like Elvis before her, Kylie attracted the celebrity set to Vegas. Paris Hilton and boyfriend Doug Reinhardt, Vanessa Minnillo, Carson Kressley, Howard Stern and wife Beth Ostrosky and Kylie’s boyfriend Andres Velencoso to name a few. Impressed with the turn out, there are rumours of offers for an extended line up of dates in the entertainment capital. Mariah Carey soon played the same room as Kylie a few days later.

Next stop: Kylie at the Hollywood Bowl. No small venue here, it’s bigger than most Australian arenas. The “hallowed ground”, as Kylie calls it, seats over 17,000. The crowds flooded in, the demographic more diverse, but still predominately made up of gay men. There were lots of Aussie accents and some straight couples with guys clutching their girlfriends for dear life.

We sat front and centre, just metres from the stage, with Kylie’s beau behind us, again one degree of separation away from the pop princess. Again the response was of adoration. Kylie’s congenial personality sets her apart from other divas such as Madonna and Lady Gaga, of which the US media were quick to mention. Comparisons to these two were everywhere in reviews in Rolling Stone to Variety, but the fact that Kylie was “likeable” and “real” was the difference. The reviews coming in were positive: the gay reviews of course gushing, the mainstream press left wondering why hadn’t Kylie become a megastar in the States? After the Hollywood Bowl show, Ru Paul who was in attendance with the rest of gay Hollywood, went so far as to say, “All Hail Queen Kylie!” Look out Madonna. A highlight of the show at The Bowl was a stripped back version of I Should Be So Lucky, the song that began it all at an international level for Kylie. As a slow ballad the song took on new meaning and poignancy, as Kylie fulfilled yet another dream. Lucky, lucky, lucky indeed.

We scammed our way into the after-party after ringing every contact in the entertainment industry to get us in. At Boulevard 3, a burlesque club on the Sunset Strip, avant garde with a very tight door, it was all about Kylie Minogue. Up to 600 guests were abuzz that Creative Director William Baker had brought Kylie and full entourage to the venue to celebrate her arrival in the States. Again we were so close yet so far, we rubbed shoulders with Willie and dancers, choreographers and stage managers; but where was Kylie?

We found her PA Leeann, who wouldn’t leave Kylie’s side at such an event. She exclaimed “She’s here somewhere chatting to people, we’ve lost her,” as Team Kylie went into a scramble to find her. We wonder if she’d slipped out the back door with her hot boyfriend.

The next night we cancel our booking at the famous celebrity restaurant Mr. Chows, only to find out Kylie had dinner there to a frenzy of paparazzi flash bulbs! So we hit The Ivy for lunch the next day, convinced that we are to be graced with Kylie’s presence. We saw Michael Gudinski enter, and thought “Kylie is sure to be arriving soon”. With every black hummer that pulls up, and there are a few, we choke on our chicken salad, but alas no show. Even at gay clubs Micky’s and Rage on their drag nights, we at least expect a Kylie number by one of the showgirls. The closest we get is a sped up drag version of Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up. Kylie eludes us in LA.

The reviews for the show were so good that the Chicago venue is upgraded to a bigger size. Toronto, Canada welcomes her with open arms and then the final stop on the tour is the Big Apple, NYC.

New York of course, if you can make it there you can make it anywhere; well Kylie had made it everywhere but. So far, at least. New York is everything it promises to be: fashionable, frenetic, big, happening. In a city that boasts about eight gay precincts, Kylie is sure to find her audience here. Two dates had sold out and a third was filling up fast at the Hammerstein Ballroom, again not an arena but a great old ballroom famous for the huge names who have played there. All three shows are more than one Madison Square Gardens gig. Many journalists ask why she did such small venues. Vlada Club in Hells Kitchen has a Kylie tribute night the night before her opening; it’s not packed. There are posters around the city of the concert and a billboard of Kylie modeling a Spanish jewelry range in Times Square. Will Kylie conquer?

The three nights did finally sell out as many read the reviews of her opening night in New York, again a rave in the New York Post. Again fans queue from as early as 2am the night before the show to get a good position. Flowers pour in, bottles of champagne are delivered. Hugh Jackman attends the show with another man… Perhaps Deborra Lee Furness had to babysit? Transsexual icon Amanda Lepore sat with the family on closing night. Madonna is rumoured to be in the audience but no confirmed sightings. The show was a hit, the New York crowd just as welcoming and adoring as the shows before. Many Australians could be heard in the crowd, amongst the Americans saying, “She’s so sweet”, “She’s adorable” and “We love you Kylie!”.

As the lights went down, and the glitter settled, Kylie must have mentally ticked another achievement off the list. She had finally come to America and had given them what they wanted – a Kylie more mature than “Rhythm of Love”, more thoughtful since her scare with cancer, more confident and relaxed than “On A Night Like This” and curvier and sexier than “Showgirl”. We didn’t get to meet her in the flesh, and the souvenir mug had a chip in it by the time we got it home, but we couldn’t have asked for more.