KYLIE MINOGUE, GLASGOW, REVIEW: UNDENIABLE EUPHORIA FROM THE KALEIDOSCOPIC QUEEN OF POP
They call her the “princess of pop”, but you could also consider Kylie Minogue a comeback queen. From her 2000 revival with Spinning Around to her 2023 summer hit Padam Padam, which won over a legion of fans not even born when the former came out, she’s an expert sidestepper of industry ageism and misogyny, forever ducking the threat of obsolescence.
She’s pop’s pluckiest constant, and as reliable a live performer as Bruce Springsteen – as Friday night proved, when Glasgow played host to the first UK date of Kylie’s biggest world tour in two decades. She may have grown up in suburban Melbourne, but the night felt like something of a homecoming: Kylie is so beloved in the UK that even the King is apparently a fan.
Lasers transformed the OVO Hydro arena from seated cruise ship entertainment to nightclub, before Kylie made a suitably grand entrance, swinging Tinkerbell-style above the crowd in a diamond-shaped laser cage.
She launched into an exhaustive – and exhausting – setlist that hewed closest to the electronic pop that defines her recent sound, upping the ante on tracks such as In Your Eyes, Get Outta My Way, and On a Night Like This to keep the crowd at the club. But she made some detours as she jaunted through her nearly 40-year catalogue: the Springsteen-like chords and “uh-huhs” of Things We Do For Love, and 2018 country ditty Dancing – her very own Dolly Parton moment.
Kylie is both a formidably glamorous star and someone you feel you could have a cup of tea with, and the show embodied this dynamic well: a high-budget masterclass in live pop, yet also warm and intimate, toeing the line between camp and restrained.
Alongside lasers and Technicolour-brash visuals was an exceptionally choreographed coterie of dancers who began the evening dressed as futuristic knights, before cycling through a series of varyingly fantastical outfits: sheer black, sequinned capes, a catwalk of ridiculous hats, and inflatable suits that looked like the geometric cousins of Pet Shop Boys’ 2016 balloon dancers.
After the obligatory outing of 1987 breakthrough hit The Loco-Motion – a reminder of her innocent soap-star Stock Aitken Waterman beginnings – she choo-chooed her way to a smaller stage, offering up a cappella fragments of fan requests, acoustic renditions, and 1995 Nick Cave collaboration Where The Wild Roses Grow. But even this potentially yawn-some section didn’t really lull. In fact, trying to keep up with Kylie – who turns 57 later this month – was a humbling experience.
Back on the main stage, as 2003 hit Slow’s glimmering shuffle reached an updated clubby crescendo, she discarded a black gown for a minidress, jumping up and down, indefatigable after two high-octane hours.
By the show’s home run of hits – Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (pop’s finest case of nominative determinism), All the Lovers, Padam Padam, and Love at First Sight – the arena had become feral, not a single person in their seat. A Kylie show is the dictionary definition of fun, but this tour suggests that it’s about time we drop the “comeback”, and settle for just “queen”.
Touring worldwide; tickets kylie.com/live
2025-05-17T12:20:06Z
