KYLIE Minogue OBE upheld her reputation as the queen of bespoke pop theatre on the first of four nights in Glasgow on her X2008 tour. In a show lasting well over two hours, she hoofed her way through 28 numbers with just enough time to change her co
rset between lavishly conceived set pieces.
As with her previous extravaganzas, the show was organised in themed sections around the costume changes. The best of these were an American football routine, with Kylie as head cheerleader held aloft by the players, to accompany the electro funk of Heartbeat Rock and two of her best sugary pop numbers, Wow and Shocked, and a high camp, nautical-but-nice, Malibu-flavoured disco segment during which she and her dancers acted out her cover of Copacabana with conspicuous relish.
Elsewhere in the proceedings she materialised on top of a huge, shiny metal skull suspended above the stage, flirted with both the elegant and seedy extremes of Japanese culture for some of her most anonymous songs, and invited a small boy onstage for a sweet meet-and-greet he will never forget.
Along the way, there were only a couple of her trademark live reinterpretations of past hits. Slow was pumped up and I Believe In You was stripped back, the latter approach only exposing the limitations of Kylie's voice. However, she did pull off a credible a capella intro to Step Back In Time and held her own on the huge stage without dancers during the simple, joyous encore which encompassed a couple of her most idealistic numbers, a gold streamer and glitter shower and the immortally cheesy I Should Be So Lucky.
Despite the vivid spectacle, her shows still lack some of the heart of, say, a Take That gig, but, as she signed off with the lyric "love me, love me, love me, I'm the one", there were few who would care to dissent.
The full article contains 326 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
