slowdown and dance with.me.uk

March 27, 2005

The Review: She wastes nothing

Rachel Devine

Kylie Minogue, SECC Glasgow, Tuesday

First it was gold hot pants, now it’s a 16in corset. It seems Kylie Minogue’s career is destined to be timelined by her sartorial exploits, while women everywhere tear out their hair at the comparatively monstrous proportions of their own bodies.

The corset (a spokesman for the singer has since denied the waist is anywhere near 16in) is admittedly a slip of a thing, but Kylie, even at 37, is a slip of a girl and whichever items of clothing she can or cannot fit her well-toned figure into is, quite frankly, irrelevant.

Or at least it should be. But the corset furore is the latest in a long line of clever publicity stunts that lend continuity to one of the most erratic careers in pop.

These days there is a quiet acceptance that this Australian beauty is almost beyond reproach. After all, many of us have grown up with her.


She was Neighbours’ Charlene, the archetypal girl next door. She was the first and the most successful in a long line of soap-actors-turned-popstars, and although the songs were dreadful and the outfits worse, we applauded her initiative.

The most interesting part of her career came about when she left the pop factory of Stock, Aitken and Waterman to take up with some unsavoury rock musicians for a series of albums on the Deconstruction label.

It would be easy to forget how rigorously berated she was for this detour from the pop mainstream, despite the fact it yielded some of her best material. And, until recently, there have been precious few great hits in such a long career.

But this is a greatest hits tour, which in Kylie’s case means a good dose of dross with the diva. But 15 years on, many of her songs from the early days have dated surprisingly well (even the dreadful Hand on Your Heart and Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi) or at least benefited from an overhaul. Her entrance onto the SECC stage is so grand that the first three songs — Better the Devil You Know, In Your Eyes and Giving You Up — bleed into one another, while the audience stands agog in the face of a sea of plumage and half-naked bodies.

The feathers are just as impressive as the corset, but then this is a show aimed at her considerable gay fan base. The female dancers play second fiddle to a troupe of glistening male limbs which circle Kylie like a flock of protective birds, seldom allowing her to interact with the audience. They introduce a medley of her more embarrassing 1980s hits dressed in tight Lycra leotards cut low to expose the nipples.

The fun continues when the stage is transformed into a men’s locker room complete with showers and more semi-nude men, this time wearing jock straps. Kylie cuts an odd figure astride a gymnastics horse belting out her very best disco numbers in her very best sexy but unthreatening manner.

Just as the message is beginning to hit home, Kylie delivers it herself, a marvellously syrupy version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, perched on a flying crescent moon. The lack of subtlety is almost charming. Next time she might try having “gay icon” tattooed to her forehead.

Put the circus aside and this is entertaining stuff, especially at a time when pop has few redeeming qualities. Can’t Get You Out of My Head and I Believe In You are marvellously crafted pop songs while some of the older tunes, such as the always haunting Confide in Me, are delivered with renewed vigour.

It’s only after a second encore that Kylie takes a moment to exchange pleasantries with the audience in a bizarre transatlantic accent. She asks us to sing Jason Donovan’s part of Especially For You and we gratefully comply. Old Kylie or new, we love her just the same.