“We don’t need to use our words,” Kylie Minogue sings in “Padam Padam”, the hit single that was absolutely everywhere – a Padamdemic, if you like – last summer, that put the 56-year-old back on Radio 1 and at the pinnacle of the pop business once again. It continues a trend across her long career of releasing songs that are so overpoweringly catchy that they barely require lyrics, from the 1987 inanities of “I Should Be So Lucky” (I know your brain just sang: “lucky lucky lucky”) to this 2023 smash, in which the repeated “Padam” represents the sound of a lovestruck heartbeat.
In between, there’s been an awful lot of “la la la”-ing: at the end of “Come Into My World”, all over “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” and now on a brand new single, “My Oh My”, a neatly structured Eurodance team-up with two other international stars, America’s Bebe Rexha and Sweden’s Tove Lo. “I’m living my dream – I’m finally in a girl band!” Kylie exclaimed as the pair strode on to trade verses during her encore.
In fact, throughout this show she gave the strong impression of someone who couldn’t quite believe her reality and didn’t want to wake up. At a time when returning superstars such as Katy Perry, Ariana Grande and Camila Cabello seem barely audible beneath the unprecedented dominance of Taylor Swift, to sound relevant in the hyperspeed world of electronic pop, 37 years after your first single, is an extraordinary achievement. Kylie gaped at the ocean of fans, giggled, and looked like she might cry.
She has done it by changing very little, not least in her looks. She still gets called a “pop princess”, with its suggestion of young innocence, in contrast to imperious “queen” Madonna. Musically, although there have been occasional detours – this evening she sang a snippet of her Nick Cave-penned murder ballad “Where the Wild Roses Grow”, and the oddest song was “Midnight Ride”, an awkward mix of country and house music featuring masked cowboy Orville Peck – not for nothing was there a colossal disco ball hanging above the stage. Even “Slow”, one of her more subtle singles with its spacey digital bassline, changed gears halfway through to introduce a mighty dance beat.
This stage set-up, with its armada of dancers and succession of increasingly elaborate costume changes, has been honed across a five-month residency in the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas. That’s the home of the heritage act, of course, but unlike many older performers, whose new albums can feel like weak excuses to take the old favourites on tour yet again, last year’s Tension has all the fizz and vibrancy of peak Kylie. The robotic house of the title track and the skyscraping anthem “Things We Do For Love” were fresh highlights rather than songs to be endured until a return to the familiar.
She pointed out that the last time she headlined in Hyde Park was nine years ago. “We’re here today and I’m so grateful,” she said. “You still take my breath away.” In the beaming crowd, the feeling was entirely mutual.
