Review: Kylie Minogue’s Golden Tour plays Adelaide Entertainment Centre

From Western chic to black leather, country to disco, Kylie Minogue’s Adelaide show last night was a spectacle of colour, costumes and genuine warmth, backed by a smoking band. Here’s our review.

Kylie Minogue in concert at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre last night. Picture: Dean Martin

As Australians, we have a natural soft spot for Ms Kylie Minogue.

She’s Charlene from Neighbours, she’s the Locomotion, she’s Nick Cave’s Wild Rose and those golden hotpants and, despite living in the UK for decades, she’s still our Kylie.

But can she throw down and deliver a two-hour live show that genuinely entertains? You better believe it.

Monday night’s Golden Tour performance at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre was about as much fun as you’re ever likely to have on a Monday night.

The people watching alone was worth the price of admission. Kylie is a long-time hero and ally to the LGBTIQ community, and she attracted one of the most colourful and downright fabulous crowds the Ent Cent has seen in a long time.

Kylie Minogue played Adelaide last night. Picture: Dean Martin

But at the end of the night, it’s all about the music, and the music didn’t disappoint.

Kylie has assembled a smoking band — she calls them her Hotrods — and they gave her sound a real “oomph” that you might think could be missing from her glossy pop.

The show starts against a backdrop of desert stars and lonesome acoustic guitar before the star of the show emerges through the red mist of the saloon doors, stage left.

Dressed in purple, she channels her inner Dolly Parton for opening track Golden.

It’s one of a number of new tracks from her Nashville-inspired new album, an album that sets the scene visually for the first half of the show.

Western chic is the order of the day — dancers dressed western gear, an old roadside phone box, a couple of vintage motorcycles, you get the idea.

“How are you all feeling?” Kylie asks the crowd. From some performers it would be a cliché, but Minogue exudes such genuine warmth you get the feeling that she actually cares about the answer.

Kylie Minogue with her band during her Adelaide gig last night. Picture: Dean Martin

“I’m gonna raise my glass to all of you and to health, happiness and love,” she says, to a rapturous response.

“You guys are up for it tonight! They don’t call it Radelaide for nothing!”

Better The Devil You Know is a nod to the old days before A Lifetime to Repair takes us back to Nashville.

After a quick costume change Kylie reappears for Confide In Me, which has to be one of her best songs.

The drum machines are off and there’s a drummer behind the kit now and the energy change is palpable.

This is Kylie in diva mode — dressed in white, lit by the spotlight, giving it everything.

There’s a brief a cappella snippet of Where The Wild Roses Grow, and a girl in the front named Zara is handed a rose to pass through the stadium, before the energy comes up again on Shelby ’68.

Can’t Get You Out Of My Head has the crowd up and singing, and then … wait … what’s this? It’s Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain! Oh, no it’s not, it’s a costume change.

Costume three is all black leather, ala Sandy in the final scene of Grease, and first track back is the funky disco burner Slow.

Kylie Minogue during her performance in Adelaide last night. Picture: Dean Martin

But it’s Kids, with her backing singers filling in for Robbie Williams, that brings the excitement levels back up.

The One features old footage of a motorcyclist riding no hands in a carnival wall of death. Why? Who knows, but nobody cares be this stage because they’re having too much fun.

Country foot-stomper Stop Me From Falling ends the set, and there’s another costume change (black silk and a red flannie — gotta love it).

Especially For You is staged as a campfire singalong, complete with falling autumn leaves, and Lost Without You is dancefloor-pleasing banger.

“Adelaide are you ready for your song?” Kylie asks.

“Yeah!” the crowd screams back.

“Do you even know what your song is?”

Turns out our song is All the Lovers. Which is fine, because it’s a good song and it’s accompanied by a huge ticker tape explosion.

Act four — a tribute to Studio 54 — is the highlight of the night.

The costumes are next-level extravagant — think if Village People and Boney M had a baby — and the dancing, which has been a highlight all night, hits a new level.

There’s a wardrobe malfunction when Kylie’s gold belt fails but, ever the professional she sings on clutching her radio mic receiver in her hand.

A medley of New York City, Raining Glitter and On A Night Like This sets the disco scene before a really fun version of Locomotion — her first hit released all the way back in 1987 — is followed by Spinning Around and the show, officially anyway, comes to an end.

There’s an encore of course — the chants of Kylie! Kylie! make sure of that — and it sees a thigh-booted Minogue deliver Love At First Sight and Dancing.

It was a great show — a well-curated set list that had something for everyone, a great band, incredible dancers and a well-designed stage.

At the end of the night it was the genuine warmth that Kylie brought to the room that was the real highlight and left everyone leaving with a smile on their face (and kilos of glitter in their hair).

Adelaide’s setlist

Act I — Desert Sunrise

1. Golden

2. Get Outta My Way

3. Better the Devil You Know

4. In Your Eyes

5. A Lifetime To Repair

Act II — The High and Dry (Blue Velvet interlude)

6. Confide In Me

7. Where the Wild Roses Grow (snippet)

8. Shelby ’68

9. Wow

10. Ca’nt Get You Out Of My Head

Act III — At the Biker Rally

11. Slow

12. Kids

13. The One

14. Stop Me From Falling

Act IV — At the Picnic After the Biker Rally

15. Wouldn’t Change A Thing

16. Especially For You

17. Lost Without You

18. All the Lovers

Act V — Studio 54

19. New York City / Raining Glitter / On a Night Like This

20. The Locomotion

21. Spinning Around

Encore — The Nashville Rider

22. Love at First Sight

23. Dancing