Review: Kylie Minogue, Golden tour, Newcastle Arena

Kylie Minogue proved she has the Midas touch yet again as she opened her Golden tour at Newcastle Arena last night.
Kylie MinogueKylie Minogue
Kylie Minogue

This was the opening night of her new tour in the year she celebrated turning 50 (she still doesn’t look a day over 35) and there was plenty of surprise tracks as she treated fans to a pick’n’mix of her pop hits.

The visuals were equally as varied as we were taken on a tour-de-force of Kylie through the decades. In homage to her current album Golden, which was partly recorded in Nashville, we began in the Wild West with a pretty-in-pink Kylie encircled by the gyrations of cowboy hat-wearing dancers as she performed the album’s title track against a desert backdrop.

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This was current day Country Kylie, but it wasn’t long, three songs in to be precise, before we were treated to Pop Princess Kylie as she dusted off Better The Devil You Know which led to an early doors mass sing-a-long in the packed arena.

There were hints of her Indie Kylie phase as she passed a rose through the crowd with a brief rendition of Where the Wild Roses Grow, her collaboration with Nick Cave, before breaking into Confide in Me. But on the whole this was an upbeat foray through the ages.

As images of Kylie hitting the open road in a Shelby 68, for the track of the same name, flashed up on the screen, you get the impression that this is a woman that has finally found herself.

She’s a performer not afraid to embrace her past, much to the delight of her fans as she treated them to Especially For You. Newcastle sang along in gusto, despite there being no sign of Jason. After a fan request, a brief acoustic of Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi also took us back to the glory days of the post Charlene and Scott era.

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With no support act, Kylie was on stage for two hours, twenty minutes, with a short break, and she certainly cranked up the arena’s electricity bill with the second half as the doors opened to Studio 54 and the arena became a giant glitter ball.

Strobe lighting showered the crowd for On a Night Like This, while Disco Kylie’s energetic dancers donned a rainbow of sequins for Locomotion.

“This is the biggest disco I’ve been to in a while,” said the pint-sized star who seemed genuinely excited at being back in the spotlight.

An embroidered cape was whipped off for the finale to reveal a glittering green jumpsuit as modern day anthem, and perfect set finisher, Dancing, rang out and the arena danced along with the golden girl.