Pink and her family are living it up in Melbourne while on tour
PINK’S Beautiful Trauma tour’s staging and hi-tech screen is on a mammoth scale, yet she still manages to make Rod Laver Arena seem intimate. And that genuine connection is why she’s sold 150,000 tickets for these latest Melbourne shows alone.
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PINK is now almost a week into her 11 shows at Rod Laver Arena for her Beautiful Trauma tour.
After performing tonight, the superstar has given herself Saturday night off before five more shows next week.
Pink and her family - husband Carey Hart (who turned 42 on Tuesday) and daughter Willow and son Jameson - have a week off between the Melbourne and Sydney legs of the tour.
Willow has made brief appearances on stage at the end of Raise Your Glass, where Pink introduces all the dancers in the tour.
A family area has been set up backstage at Rod Laver Arena, as well as new poles backstage celebriting her record number of shows at the venue - which is truly her happy hunting ground.
Pink features in part of a new mural near the entrance to the recently-renovated venue, allowing fans to take a selfie while queuing up to enter.
When you pop in to see mum at work: @Pink’s daughter Willow on stage at @RodLaverArena last night pic.twitter.com/SAO2lJdyEn
— cameron adams (@cameron_adams) July 17, 2018
With Melbourne being one of Pink’s most popular markets on the planet, she will return to Rod Laver Arena for the final two shows of the Australian leg of the tour - August 28 and 29.
With a gruelling schedule (usually with only one night off between shows) singer has kept herself off the radar while in Melbourne. Hart posted a photo of celebrating his birthday with daughter willow at a sushi restaurant.
In Adelaide Pink and her Australian manager Roger Davies (who barracks for Geelong) went to the Crows and Cats game.
Pink will be in performing in Auckland for her 39th birthday on September 8.
PINK AND AUSTRALIA BY THE NUMBERS
1: number of shows at Rod Laver Arena on her Try This tour in 2004
6: number of shows at Rod Laver Arena on her I’m Not Dead tour in 2007
17: number of shows at Rod Laver Arena on her Funhouse tour in 2009
18: number of shows at Rod Laver Arena on her The Truth About Love tour in 2013
54: the number of times Pink will have played Rod Laver Arena after the Beautiful Trauma tour
150,000: number of tickets for Rod Laver Arena sold for Beautiful Trama tour in 2018
600,000: number of tickets for Rod Laver Arena Pink will have sold after Beautiful Trauma tour
5: Number of consectutive No.1 albums Pink has had in Australia
3.8 million: number of albums Pink has sold in Australia since 2000
24: Number of Top 10 singles Pink has had in Australia
9: Number of No.1 singles Pink has had in Australia
25: number of trucks transporting the Beautiful Trauma tour around Australia
60: number of tonnes of equipment being transported around
100: number of staff working on the tour, from catering to masseurs
REVIEW OF PINK’S BEAUTIFUL TRAMA TOUR
by Cameron Adams
IN a touring world increasingly fixated on bigger venues, Pink continues to concentrate on being the best at what she does.
Basing herself and her family in Australia for two months means Pink can still play arenas, not stadiums.
That speaks volumes about how she treats her audience and views the live experience.
PINK ROARS AND SOARS ON TOUR HITTING AUSTRALIA
Pink’s Beautiful Trauma tour actually manages to shoehorn a stadium-sized production into Rod Laver Arena. The staging and hi-tech screen is on a mammoth scale. Yet she still manages to make the 13,500 seat venue (which she’ll play a remarkable 11 times on this tour) seem intimate.
Whether that be by her trademark flying over the crowd or by stripping things back to her equally trademark campfire acoustic moment, there’s a reason why Pink will have played Rod Laver Arena 53 times (more than any other artist) come the end of August.
You can’t fake what she does. Quite literally, in the case of her aerial work, which involves months of training. And then factor in she’s still singing completely live even when hanging upside down or zipping up to the nosebleeds like a leather-clad bat out of hell.
But it’s that genuine connection that continues to explain why she’s sold 150,000 tickets for these latest Melbourne shows alone. She’s the square peg outsider who’s made it on her own terms and these are her people. They’ve watched her grow up from a pop brat to a grown woman with a family of her own - she’s always been honest, still discussing whatever is happening in her life. And there’s more and more joining the tribe (and showering Pink in gifts and love) — possibly in tandem with pop music getting more beige and singers playing it more safe.
This tour is essentially a greatest hits set — Get the Party Started, Just Like a Pill, Who Knew, Try, Perfect, Raise Your Glass, So What, Just Give Me a Reason, Just Like Fire — with the highlights from last year’s album Beautiful Trauma.
Funhouse was written with No Doubt’s Tony Kanal, and on the Beautiful Trauma tour the song is now effortlessly mashed up with No Doubt’s Just a Girl.
What About Us is a spine-tingling moment — a battle cry for a divided world — and she finds the best ever solution to an absent duet partner — a giant inflatable Eminem on the lyrically-questionable Revenge.
Pink does mention she still shies away from swearing as much as possible on stage (particularly on F-----g Perfect) due to the young ears both backstage and in front of her.
Some cynics said ‘Oh she’s flying again’ on social media (the home of cynicism).
But why deprive people seeing that moment, which, incidentally, looks like an incredible amount of fun. Superstars have their ‘trademark’ moves, from Michael Jackson’s moonwalking to Angus Young’s duck walk.
And who else could channel her grunge youth with a Nirvana cover then immediately perform a stunning bite-size Cirque Du Soleil aerial ballet show during Secrets?
The back-to-basics rock assault on Smells Like Teen Spirit reminds you Pink doesn’t need all the Instagram-ready gravity-defying acrobatics and precision choreography. But the fact she can do it all effortlessly in the one show reinforces just how one of a kind Pink is.
Pink plays Rod Laver Arena July 16 to 28 and returns on August 28, 29.
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