Kylie’s Ancient Greek Spectacle

On Shrove Saturday, the ‘mythological dragon expedition’ (read: a 30-strong busload from the concert agency Koncerti.net) set off on a pop pilgrimage to witness the myth of the goddess Aphrodite, starring Kylie Minogue. We ended up at the famous music mecca Olympiahalle München, which has seen countless great and memorable shows. The sun followed us the whole way, and before four in the afternoon we pulled into Olympic Park, where a crowd of locals and tourists was basking in the first rays of spring sunshine, coffee cups or beer glasses in hand. We had more than enough time before the show, so like proper music nerds we checked out the mini rock museum up the iconic Olympic Tower. Among other things, there’s a whole range of tickets from gigs at this venue on display, and the exhibits include, for example, a Metallica guitar, Gene Simmons’ famous ‘axe’ and the legendary mirrored piano of English pop star Elton John, who, by the way, is playing here in Slovenia this year too.

The hall filled up to the sounds of the support act, German pop singer Frida Gold, who plays music similar to the evening’s main star, Kylie Minogue. She played her hour-long set, but it didn’t really warm us up much. The whole thing somehow passed by unnoticed, in one ear and out the other.

 

Right on schedule, at 9 p.m., things get going for real. To the beats of Aphrodite, the title track of her latest album, we witness the rebirth of the goddess of beauty and love, Aphrodite. Against the fascinating backdrop of a Greek temple, with inventive video walls and outstanding lighting effects, Aphrodite rises from the sea foam in an open golden shell. During Illusion, Kylie appears on the mythical flying horse Pegasus, which carries her over the heads of her biggest fans, who were having a blast in the so-called ‘splash ring’ inside the stage construction. Then, to the strains of one of her biggest hits, I Believe in You, Kylie is whisked through the entire stage set on a Greek war chariot.

The next batch of songs is a trip back in time, to the days of the albums Light Years and Fever, which gives us the hit Spinning Around. Dressed in the style of the then hugely popular musical Moulin Rouge!, Kylie also sings Get Outta My Way and What Do I Have to Do. The crowd, fairly cold up to now, is finally slowly thawing and warming up.

The performance of the hit from the album Body Language, Slow, is very interesting and well executed. The arrangement is 1950s-style jazz, and Kylie rises above the main stage on a tilted, spinning disc. To my great delight, Confide in Me follows, which I consider by far the best song she has ever recorded. Kylie delivers it confidently live too, with excellent choreography and magnificent effects.

After the hits Can’t Get You Out of My Head and In My Arms, the show leaves the musical past and returns to ancient Greece in the present, on the search for angels, which Looking For an Angel illustrates perfectly. The long-sought angel rises from the mist into the sky, and during Closer Kylie flies up into the heavens with him. The cover of the Eurythmics song There Must Be an Angel also fits very nicely into the ‘angelic part’ of the concert.

The only ballad Kylie serves up is If You Don’t Love Me, which gives us a chance to catch our breath and calm our racing hearts. At the same time, it gets us ready for the evening’s big finale, which kicks off with the hit Better the Devil You Know. SexKylie in hot pants and a rather revealing top with feathers over the shoulders is joined by backup dancers in carnival costumes, who crank the party up to its peak. A short chat with the audience and Put Your Hands Up follow. The floor section finally and completely lets loose and starts enjoying the music, while the stands remain bashfully reserved. Apart from a few of us, of course, who hadn’t been able to just sit still for ages (a nod to the lyrics of Get Outta My Way) and had given ourselves over to the rhythm and the dancing long before.

To close, we get spoiled with the hits On a Night Like This and All the Lovers, which wraps up the whole spectacle. And here comes the disappointment. I don’t know why, but the water effects and fountains, which were so heavily advertised before the tour started and were pulled off at the first shows, sadly never made it to our night.

How tough it is to warm up a demanding German audience, Kylie found out too, like many others before her. A strong set of well-known, much-loved hits, which she sang and interpreted very correctly and confidently, struggled to wake up the crowd, especially in the stands, who were more or less numb. Kylie gave everything she was capable of giving at that moment (and that was no small amount!), and the sound, arrangements, PA and production were all executed with distinction. Maybe she just needed slightly more energetic dancers with somewhat livelier choreography, because at times they got lost and served more as extra scenery than as dance numbers. It was also sad to see quite a large part of the stands empty; the show was only about 70% full. The big black mark goes to the production. According to reports, the whole show is worth 25 million dollars, and it has to be admitted that the idea and the way of pulling it off are brilliant. The stage with all its lighting and other effects was truly something special, something never seen before. But if they chose such a concept, there was no way they should have allowed themselves a blunder like leaving out the water effects. Not that the water backdrop alone would be worth a 400 km drive, but it was an important enough element of the whole story that it left a sense of something missing, and with it a feeling of being shortchanged.

All things considered, though, I can call the show excellent. Excellent in the pop sense, where music alone isn’t enough, but it’s the whole package, where the music, visual effects and dance choreography all have to click together. Kylie is still a master at this, putting together a beautiful, lavish and unique stage show full of everything, while making sure that, despite the abundance, she doesn’t slip into kitsch.