In May 2005, I went to see Kylie on her Showgirl tour at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre with my friend Billy. Our tickets had us seated high up in the gods near the back of the arena, possibly as far from Ms. Minogue as it was possible to get.
Fast forward fourteen years to early 2019 and Brighton Pride announced what many of us had been expecting; Kylie Minogue was to headline their park event in August. Being a fan of hers since I was 15, I decided that I wanted to rectify my previous live Kylie experience and do it properly this time. To that end, I stumped up for Golden Circle tickets, a bit nervous at the expense and not realistically expecting anything very special, my gamble paid off when we reached the venue and saw that I couldn’t have hoped for a better view.
Expecting to wait a couple of hours for Kylie to appear, a special surprise addition to the line-up was announced with Emeli Sande appearing on the huge side screen, waiting backstage. Striding onto stage, she greeted the crowd and announced that this was her first Pride event. Completely engaging with the audience, she did a short set of her biggest four songs plus one from her forthcoming album culminating in the rousing ‘Read All About It, Pt. III’. This was the perfect way to start an awesome evening.
Brighton Drag Queen, the incomparable Lola Lasagne, appeared afterwards to introduce the Brighton Pride campaign video. This is a tough watch but as we enjoy ourselves at a party and then move on with our daily living, it’s necessary to keep in mind how far the Pride movement has come and how much is left to do, globally.
Then came the main event heralded a little before by the stage crew assembling the now familiar Kylie festivals tour staging. Just before the live appearance, a video filmed in Brighton of her last single ‘New York City’ was put on the screens.
The video then led directly onto the dancers coming on stage to turn the mirrors around, with the last one revealing Kylie herself. Needless to say, the crowd went wild!
This was pretty much the same set that Kylie performed at Glastonbury with a few special tweaks for her audience as well as a special addition (that I’ll come on to later). What was different from Glastonbury was that here, Kylie had more time to bond with the crowd and really, this crowd is composed of the people who perhaps love and support her the most.
Her opening live number, ‘Love at First Sight’ just so happens to be one of my all-time favourites Kylie songs so I was immediately happy.
The big highlight came just before the end when after ‘The Locomotion’, especially for us, Kylie added ‘Your Disco Needs You’ into her setlist. This is possible the perfect, iconic gay song – it’s a throwback to the Village People, it’s disco, it’s over the top with operatics and it’s Kylie. I’ve never seen or heard a crowd go into such a frenzy of joy and excitement.
With the crowd still buzzing from this, she ended her main set with ‘All the Lovers’, even the security staff behind us joined the party, encouraging and rousing the folks behind us.
Most often when I go to a concert, I reach a point where I’m ready to go home. I didn’t reach that point and I don’t think many others did… It’s also not often that I go to a concert where I know all the lyrics to all the artists’ songs, again I wasn’t the only one.
Setlist:
- New York City
- Love at First Sight
- I Should Be So Lucky
- On a Night Like This
- Get Outta My Way
- What Do I Have to Do?
- Never Too Late
- Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi
- Hand on Your Heart
- In Your Eyes
- The One
- Slow
- Confide in Me
- Kids
- Can’t Get You Out of My Head
- Especially for You
- Shocked
- Step Back in Time
- Better the Devil You Know
- Where the Wild Roses Grow
- The Loco-Motion
- Your Disco Needs You
- All the Lovers
Encore:
- Dancing
- Spinning Around
Dorothy's Dog 