Showgirl!

Today I went to see Kylie with my friend Jaya. Our seats were quite good, on the floor section near the ramp where she well, makes rampa. The first half of the show I didn't know most of the songs, except for Come Inside, Kids and Spinning Around. Security also stopped us from taking pictures, "at Kylie's request". After the 20 min intermission - where I bought myself a " I am a Showgirl" shirt that I quite possibly may never wear in the philippines for fear of misinterpretation - we managed to squeeze to the floor section near the ramp which was on the end of the row where we were and that's where I took these pictures.

Kylie came back singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" while sitting on a moon, but my pictures of her there are so fuzzy so you're getting the picture of the back of her neck!!!

You can tell why Kylie is much loved by the gay community - all the male dancers were 90% of the time in swim trunk type undies and were shirtless. At some point they wore trunks and giant peacock style wings - which caused me and my friend (who is gay herself) to burst into laughter and for her to say, "I can see why Kylie is such a fag hag!". To be fair she had excellent dancers. I really admire their stamina, skill and their ability to dance around in their underwear. I don't think that would have been easy particularly for the men.

She changed outfits at least 6 times, and more often than not the dancers had to change quicker and get on and prance about first. They also had quite a few complicated moves. And at one point, where they were all dressed like robots, the guys had giant metal nose shaped triangles stuck to wear their dicks were supposed to be. (Gaultier designed, perhaps, like Madonna's cone boobs?)

One of the ladies in line at the bar during the intermission remarked to a gay man, "One of them has to be straight. You can have the rest, but one of them has to be a straight man!!!" In fairness quite a few of them looked straight, especially the guy with a lot of tattoos, but I guess you'd have to be pretty open to allow yourself to parade in your underthings and touch other men as well through the course of your dancing. Most straight men I know are rather squeamish about that part.

There was a middle aged woman in front of us who had brought her daughters and was just screaming "Kylie! Kylie!" the whole time. I tried to be considerate as I thought, she must be this woman's Bono but my friend just wanted to kill her. Also the lady next to her had this fluffy feather duster like thing that she kept waving in the air, which makes quite an appearance in my Can't Get You Out of My Head Video.

Kylie did two encores, the first doing CGYOMH and two other songs dressed like a cross between an Egyptian and a butterfly. Then she did the last one in a rhinestone studded bustier type top with funky graffiti printed pants and a coat, none of which matched. The back of the coat said "Kylie Says Relax. She's back!" and one of the signs on her pants - next to a pic of Keanu, of all things - said, "Kylie likes tea better than sex"

My favorite renditions were of "Locomotion" - which she did cabaret style with a Vogue intro - "Lucky" (yes, 80s!) and CGYOMH. She also sang "Especially For You" in the end as a tribute to the fans who waited for her to come back. Was especially horrified that I knew all the lyrics, thanks to pinoy radio. At some point she said, "Thank you to all of you who kept your old tickets from the last shows " - she had to postpone because of her cancer and old tix were still valid but could also be refunded if not used. She also asked, so where have you been keeping them? Anywhere interesting? Tell me! And I said "Underwear Drawer!" cos that's where I keep all my tickets! And she heard me! In the end she said so far the knickers drawer was the most interesting one (Go Me!).