From Adele to U2 — here’s some of the best gigs of the decade
Ten years and so much music — Cameron Adams has ploughed through some of the best tours to visit Melbourne over the past decade.
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BEST GIGS OF THE DECADE
ADELE
Etihad Stadium March 2017
By the time Adele finally made it to Australia she was so popular her first tour had to be in stadiums. Yet somehow she managed to make them somewhat intimate. Playing in the round (remember the eyes on the screen that were on everyone’s social media feed), Adele charmed the masses just by being herself. Still remembering when she was a punter she’d hidden signed gifts in the nosebleed seats but it was about those instant classic songs, and the banter between them. “My show is basically two hours of crying and songs about my ex boyfriend,” she apologised in advance. That’s precisely why everyone was there. That and that voice. It could be the only time she tours, if so, what a tour.
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BEYONCE
Rod Laver Arena October 2013
The Mrs Carter World tour was a transitional time – Beyonce had her all-female band in place, was a new mum and only a few months away from dropping her game-changing self-titled surprise visual album (she filmed one of the videos in Brunswick). Watching her up close in an arena, singing and dancing completely live, was one of those moments where you realised you’re in the presence of once-in-a-generation greatness. Sadly we haven’t seen her down under since that tour.
DAVID BYRNE
Margaret Court Arena, November 2018
SO simple, so effective. David Byrne redefined the stage show by clearing the stage and getting the musicians to carry their instruments with them. It was like Marie Kondo’s dream – blank space and no pesky clutter. It’s now gone to Broadway (it was always intricately choreographed) and hopefully the way Byrne enjoyed playing Talking Heads classics like Burning Down the House means those reformation rumours might have some weight to them.
PAUL McCARTNEY
AAMI Park December 2017
IT had only taken a lazy 24 years to get back here, but some things are worth waiting for. Sir Paul, now in his 70s, was playing songs he wrote in his 20s and 30s (those Wings songs still kick), and spent three hours on stage. There were countless times you had to pinch yourself that you were literally watching a Beatle still playing the songs he was responsible for implanting into the ether. And it was that John and George he was referring to when he introduced the tunes. When living legends don’t disappoint you.
PRINCE
Arts Centre, February 2016
WE could have picked any of his Rod Laver Arena shows of 2012 from the Welcome 2 Australia tour where he just played whatever he felt like, the way musicians used to, and his band had to follow his lead. Everything from Mountains to Hot Thing, A Love Bizarre to Extraloveable, Pop Life to Take Me With U and so many, many hits. But it was that final tour, in the last months of his life, that was something truly special. And the first Melbourne show, just a few hours after he found out about his ex girlfriend Vanity’s death, was Prince being uncharacteristically emotional. He played songs he wrote for her – like Little Red Corvette — and introduced The Beautiful Ones by saying “I am new to this playing alone....it’s a little heavy for me tonight..she knows about this one.” RIP Prince.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
AAMI Park, February 2014
WHERE do you start? Maybe at the very beginning – Eddie Vedder coming on to play Highway to Hell and Darkness on the Edge of Town like it was no big deal. Playing The Saints’ Just Like Fire Would and still reading fan requests off signs (thank you for Hungry Heart). And this was the tour where he played entire albums in full on a whim, so the first night Melbourne got Born in the USA in full, only the second time he’d played it like that anywhere on the planet. Total playing time: three hours, 22 minutes. That’s why he’s called The Boss.
FLEETWOOD MAC
A Day on the Green, Geelong, November 2015
IT was the tour that should never have happened – the classic Rumours line-up healing the wounds and getting the band back together. And of course it was too good to be true – Christine McVie is still there but Lindsay Buckingham has now been ejected, replaced this year by Neil Finn. But for one glorious tour all those egos were somehow put aside to play those amazing songs again (with McVie’s Songbird and Little Lies added back to the set, plus Gypsy, Silver Springs, Sara, Tusk, Dreams etc) and Stevie Nicks and Buckingham still able to be within duetting distance. Those days are sadly over, but we’ll always have November 2015.
PINK
Rod Laver Arena, July 2018
Sure there was the 2013 The Truth About Love tour where she filmed a DVD (remember those) in Melbourne. But the Beautiful Trauma tour was everything you love about Pink in one incredible show – from hanging from the ceiling to stripping things back to the barest of raw emotions. You get the feeling that the next time on the road (she’s hinted it might be a minute) the singer might not be down to play another lengthy run of arena shows, but if anyone can upgrade to a stadium with ease, it’d be Pink.
TAYLOR SWIFT
AAMI Park, December 2015
THERE’S been smaller and bigger Swift tours here, but there was something about her 2015 1989 tour that captured her imperial period perfectly. Swift had completed her transformation from country singer, and her appeal was so immense (and the record was so strong) she played virtually every song from the album and just a handful of her previous hits without a drop in energy. It’d be like seeing Michael Jackson play all of Thriller live in 1983. Plus she had homeboy Vance Joy opening for her in his home town after taking him around the world. This was the peak of Taylor Swift’s pop life before things started to turn dark.
GEORGE MICHAEL
Etihad Stadium, March 2010
YOU know how incredible this show was? George called Melbourne “Sydney” multiple times and it didn’t matter. After decades off the road, he was back on stage, taking the piss out of outdated Wham! lyrics – singing “yeah right” after “I said you were the perfect girl for me” in Everything She Wants, firing up funky jams like Fastlove, Star People, Freedom 90 and Outside, and nailing ballads like A Different Corner, You Have Been Loved and Careless Whisper. If you were there you know. Sadly it would be the last time we’d see him in concert, with an orchestral tour cancelled due to ill health. And we all know how unhappily things ended.
SADE
Rod Laver Arena, November 2011
WHEN an artists who rarely tours, you must go. And Sade did not disappoint. Not only was that pure voice still intact, she put on a truly classy show. The one benefit of touring selectively means you don’t tire of your songs so you heard Smooth Operator, Your Love is King, No Ordinary Love, Is it A Crime, Jezebel, Soldier of Love, Love is Stronger Than Pride and The Sweetest Taboo all breathed back to life.
KYLIE MINOGUE
Palace Theatre, March 2012
HAS any A-list pop star ever done this? Sure we could have picked any of Kylie’s arena spectacular tours playing the hits to the masses. But where pop stars always say they’re doing it for the fans, Minogue talked the talk and put on an entire Anti-Tour playing obscure songs, album tracks, b-sides, lost singles and even unreleased demos. No dancers, no bells, no whistles and no hits (well a few that’d been long retired from duty) Minogue relied on a lyric sheet and played the exact kind of set list a fan would only dream their favourite artist would play, surrounded by fellow Kyhards. Some kind of bliss.
THE CURE
Rod Laver Arena, July 2016
NOW famous for their lengthy shows, Robert Smith and co crowbarred in 35 songs over three hours, and with incredible attention to detail. If you’re not a fan, it would have been probably close to torture, but for the converted, it was never enough. You were willing them to keep going and see how far they could push the curfew.
NEIL FINN & PAUL KELLY
Palais Theatre, March 2013
SOUNDED brilliant on paper, even better in real life. Two incredible songwriters sharing a stage and each others’ songs. The mutual respect was something else. So was hearing Paul Kelly take a few verses on Distant Sun and all of Into Temptation (it fitted him perfectly), or Neil Finn singing Kelly’s You Can Put Your Shoes Under My Bed. And all those classics. Such utter classics.
FLORENCE & THE MACHINE
Sidney Myer Music Bowl, January 2019
ONE of the few acts to emerge and evolve from the last decade, Florence Welch makes very personal music that translates well to big crowds. And to help the transition she slips her shoes off and runs through the audience, forcing people to put their phones down, hug a stranger and live in the moment. It’s that healing feeling that keeps people coming back.
U2
Marvel Stadium, November 2019
They started the decade playing here under a giant claw with Jay-Z as opening act. They ended it by somehow making a nostalgia tour not seem totally nostalgic. The Joshua Tree album was plonked in the middle, with bespoke videos for each track making you feel like you were watching U2 soundtracking their own movie. But watching them power through early U2 (Bad, Pride, I Will Follow) and then finish with recent U2 just reminded you that you don’t get to be this big for this long by accident.
ED SHEERAN
Rod Laver Arena, 2015
The touring success story of the decade. In 2011 Sheeran played to a few dozen media a Bakehouse Studios in Collingwood. By 2018 he’d broken the record held by Dire Straits for the most tickets sold on a single tour in Australia – clocking up a million tickets when you factor in New Zealand as well. And he did it all by himself, with no band, just as he did at Bakehouse, with many of the same songs. He’s played everywhere from Hanging Rock to the MCG to a fan’s loungeroom to Festival Hall since, and of course his four Etihad Stadium shows. But it was his Rod Laver Arena tour of 2015 which sticks in the mind. You knew it was the last time he was arena bound, indeed, he’d return later that same year to upgrade to AAMI Park on simple supply and demand.
ROGER WATERS
Rod Laver Arena, February 2012
For the grumpiest man in rock, Roger Waters has been making a lot of peoples’ bucket list moments come true. And actually building that damn wall Pink Floyd tried to do back in the day, and play The Wall in full, was a gigantic undertaking. While there were obviously moving parts missing, as far as the closest thing to the original thing goes, it was up there.
COLDPLAY
Etihad Stadium, December 2016
There’s the people who hate Coldplay. Then there’s the sold out stadiums across the globe filled with joy. There was something particularly special about this show – someone proposed during A Sky Full of Stars (Chris Martin stopped the song to facilitate it), they sang Imagine with Emmanuel Kelly, a cover of David Bowie’s Heroes ... now once they work out how to tour again let’s pray for them to start doing a Springsteen and drop full albums in sets – imagine Parachutes or A Rush of Blood to the Head played start to end.
NICK CAVE
Melbourne Town Hall, January 2019
REMEMBER that odd show at the Plenary where Nick Cave said it was like was doing a TED Talk? Well, he pretty much did one this year when he turned his captivating online Q&A forums into a real life Q&A forum. No screening of questions, no pesky middle person between fan and Cave – just direct contact and a bunch of solo piano songs as well. Who would have thought Nick Cave would be getting more warm and fuzzy and accessible?
BRUNO MARS
Rod Laver Arena, March 2018
A FEW tours in a row now proves it’s no fluke – the man is unfeasibly talented. This was the tour where everything moved up a notch or 15 production wise, but when he wasn’t doing choreographed moves with his band (while they were all playing instruments) he’d casually belt out a song on piano or guitar and now has the ideal closer with Uptown Funk. How do you top that?
LADY GAGA
Rod Laver Arena, March 2010
LITERALLY a year before Gaga was opening for the Pussycat Dolls. And a year before that she was playing four song sets at shady bars on King Street promoting her first hit Just Dance. But by 2010 a star was born. The Monster Ball tour was everything missing from pop – extreme drama, wild theatre, live vocals and a sense of fearlessness. She made it exciting again.
ELTON JOHN
Rod Laver Arena, December 2019
CLOSING the decade in style, we’ve seen a lot of Elton over the years but he’s going out on his own terms. And all cliches and fanfare aside, he and his band are playing like it’s the last time the people in the audience are going to see them. Because there wasn’t enough emotion at an Elton show already.
ALSO
RADIOHEAD – Rod Laver Arena 2012
ROLLING STONES – Rod Laver Arena 2014
ROBYN – Sidney Myer Music Bowl 2012
BLUR – Rod Laver Arena 2015
HUNTERS & COLLECTORS – Palais 2014
THE TEMPER TRAP – Festival Hall 2010
MIDNIGHT OIL – Sidney Myer Music Bowl 2017
MADONNA – Forum/Rod Laver Arena 2016
HALL & OATES/ICEHOUSE – Plenary 2012
THE EAGLES – Rod Laver Arena 2015
LORDE – Festival Hall 2015
MICHAEL KIWANUKA – Corner Hotel 2017
ROBBIE WILLIAMS – A Day on the Green Rochford Winery 2018
JOHN FARNHAM & OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN — Rod Laver Arena 2015
GURRUMUL – Palais Theatre 2012
AC/DC – Etihad Stadium 2010
PHOENIX – Festival Hall 2014
THE KILLERS – Palace Theatre 2013
THE NATIONAL – Palais Theatre 2011
MICHAEL BUBLE – Rod Laver Arena 2011
GUNS N’ ROSES – MCG 2017
CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS – Forum 2019
KANYE WEST – Rod Laver Arena 2014
NENEH CHERRY – Recital Centre 2019
JAMES BLAKE – Palais Theatre 2013
THE THE – Hamer Hall 2018
BILLIE EILISH – Margaret Court Arena 2019
LEONARD COHEN – Rod Laver Arena 2013
SOLANGE – Prince of Wales 2014
ARCTIC MONKEYS – Rod Laver Arena 2014
FOO FIGHTERS – AAMI Park 2011
GOTYE – National Theatre 2011
GANG OF YOUTHS – Forum 2018
THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS — Melbourne Arena 2019
DRAKE – Rod Laver Arena 2017
ARCADE FIRE – Sidney Myer Music Bowl 2014
GRACE JONES — Palais 2018
THE HUMAN LEAGUE — Palais 2017
NILE RODGERS & CHIC — 180 Russell 2013
Originally published as From Adele to U2 — here’s some of the best gigs of the decade
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