Troye Sivan wows with ‘insane’ Sydney Opera House show

Troye Sivan performed a massive outdoor gig in Sydney last night, despite a looming thunderstorm threatening to scupper the whole show.

Sydney’s always-unpredictable weather meant a nervous wait for fans attending Troye Sivan’s open-air On The Steps concert at the Sydney Opera House forecourt yesterday.

Earlier in the day, the Bureau of Meteorology had cheerfully predicted a likelihood of “a thunderstorm with heavy rain, large hail and damaging winds” for around the time he was due on stage.

Thankfully, it drizzled only enough for the sold out crowd to get comfortably “sweaty and wet,” in Sivan’s words.

The 29-year-old star is at the tail end of his biggest Australian tour yet, fresh from a triumphant homecoming at the ARIA Awards, where he accepted the Album of the Year award with a hilarious speech revealing the entire record had been inspired by one particularly memorable one-night stand.

Sivan cleaned up at the recent ARIA Awards. Picture: Nina Franova/Getty

On stage during his Aussie tour. Picture: Stephen Archer

And despite his status as a globe-trotting pop star, he was clearly proud of his Australian roots, telling the crowd: “Make no f**king mistake, this is Australian music.”

Released just over a year ago now, Sivan’s third studio album Something To Give Each Other represented an undeniable elevation in his sound. From the music – a near-perfect half-hour of pop – to that string of stylish music videos, everything on the album is brimming with a confidence that had already shone through in earlier singles like My My My and Bloom, but hadn’t quite sustained his previous LPs.

The only disappointment of his Aussie visit: Here in Australia, we don’t get the bang-for-your-buck double bill that is Sivan’s recent Sweat tour, co-headlined with Charli XCX. Sivan made sure to account for that, performing two Charli bangers back-to-back: Their 2018 single 1999 and this year’s remix duet Talk Talk.

Charli’s not the only female pop star looming large across the evening: Sivan paid tribute to several pop divas, from the carefully chosen pre-show music (Janet Jackson’s forever-underrated 2004 banger All Nite (Don’t Stop)) to an encore costume change that had a strong nod to Kylie Minogue’s iconic Can’t Get You Out Of My Head outfit.

Troye Sivan gets hot and heavy with his back-up dancers at last night’s show.

But Madonna is the clearest influence on show here, particularly during a star-making performance of slow jam One Of Your Girls: Sivan emerges dressed like Blonde Ambition-era Madge, performing the sort of overtly sexual moves with his back-up dancers that Madonna so loves (and tour HR departments presumably hate).

He returns a few songs later wearing a variation of Madonna’s classic ‘Italians do it better’ sweatshirt – this time repurposed to ‘Aussies do it better’. If you’re gonna crib, may as well crib from the Queen of Pop.

And if we’re talking Madonna, Troye’s definitely in his Erotica era. He drops to his knees during the first song, singing into a microphone suggestively held at a dancer’s crotch. Later in the show, the camera lingers as he and another dancer share a lengthy pash (the crowd goes wild, of course). Even the subtext of gay sex bop Bloom becomes text, as his male dance troupe bend over and waggle their butts to the crowd.

And smartly, he doesn’t outstay his welcome. A mere 70 minutes after it began, the show’s over, Troye commanding the crowd to jump along to the anthemic STGEO lead single Rush.

Earlier, he’d stopped for a moment to take in the 6,000 strong crowd, spanning the Opera House’s entire forecourt and steps, and declared it the “most f**king insane thing” he’d ever seen.

Tonight, he does it all again when the Something To Give Each Other Australian tour finishes with another sold out On The Steps show at the Sydney Opera House forecourt (to those going: Pack a poncho).

Originally published as Troye Sivan wows with ‘insane’ Sydney Opera House show