As long as Kylie is around, the throne will remain far away for Dua Lipa & Co.
“Baby, there ain’t nothin’ better and I could do this forever with you,” sings Kylie Minogue on the keyboards of “Tension”, appearing before the crowd of 60,000 people at the main stage of the Sziget Festival in BudapestThe lyrics of the song that gave the title to her latest album, released last year, thirty-five years after her 1988 debut with the eponymous “Kylie”, seem to be the manifesto of the artistic and personal rebirth of the 56 year old Australian queen of 90s dance Yet another, after her dazzling debut in the late 80s with hits like “I should be so luck” and “Got to be certain” (which immediately made her a princess of dance floors all over the world: she was 19 at the time), the fight against breast cancer which in 2005 forced her to withdraw from the scene for a year for treatment, the comeback in grand style in 2007 with “2 hearts” and the long crisis of the 2010s.
.Kylie waited with confidence for the wheel to turn again. No, not the panoramic one, 65 meters high, built in the center of the Danube island that hosts the festival. But the one of his career. And in the end he took his revenge all, one by one. Even being celebrated, last night, by the Hungarian festival, which has become over the years one of the most anticipated, followed and commented European summer events.
Kylie, who appears on stage sporting a pair of fishnet stockings, leather boots and a black glitter duster coat (but will change her outfit at some point, opting for a red dress with ribbons in the style of the future cowgirl), has taken the headliner status of Sziget after repositioning herself in recent months with the single “Padam padam”, conquering even the kids of the Generation Zwho weren’t even born when in 2001 with “Can’t get you out of my head” – spoiler: at the end of the show he sends the colorful and folkloristic crowd gathered under the main stage into ecstasy – sold over 5 million copies worldwide.
Thanks to the single, which .on Spotify it has surpassed 150 million streams worldwidethe Australian singer has reappeared in the British top ten after a decade (even taking first place), won a Grammy at the latest edition of the awards for “Best Pop Dance Recording” (she hadn’t won one in twenty years) and returned to performing in front of stadium-sized crowds, like the one last month in London’s Hyde Park or the one yesterday on the Danube island that hosts Sziget. One could mistake these results for career recognition. Nothing could be more wrong: if anything, they are awards to the ability of this pop master to continually reinvent herself and rise from her own ashes, like a phoenix.
The organizers of Sziget honored her by inviting her as a flagship artist of the lineup, but they also entrusted her with the task of inaugurating, as a special godmother, the thirtieth edition of the Hungarian festivalwhich will continue until August 12, at the end of a day marked by highly acclaimed performances such as that of the American heroine of indie rock BlondshellOf Tom Odell and the revelation of the latest Eurovision Joost Klein (who got the crowd at the Revolut Stage going wild with the catchphrase “Europapa”).Come into my world“Come into my world,” Kylie sings on the notes of the 2002 hit, in front of a sea of sequined tops, glitter, cowboy hats and t-shirts that pay homage to the various eras of her career Come to think of it, Kylie’s world seems to correspond precisely to the world of Sziget, born as a rock gathering for young people after the fall of the communist regime and the proclamation of the Republic of Hungary, when the founders realized the need to give Hungarian kids the opportunity to come together through music (in 1994 on stage there were Jethro Tull, Eric Burdon, The Birds, the Grandmothers of Invention, Jefferson Starship), only to then open up to all genres, starting with pop.
.Making inclusiveness and respect for diversity, in every sense, its mission: “The island of freedom”, “The island of freedom”, is the slogan of the festival today.
The setlist goes from “In your eyes” and “Get outta my way”, from “Confide in me” to “On a night like this”, from “Red blooded woman” and “Slow” to songs from “Tension” like “Hold on to now” and “Things we do for love”, with that retropop that confirmed once and for all that in the history of pop music of the last thirty years Kylie Minogue represented a link between the irreducible queen Madonna and the new generation of starletsfrom Dua Lipa to Sabrina Carpenter. Sexy, charismatic and radiantin an hour and a half of Kylie Minogue show
crosses past, present (in the setlist, in addition to “Padam padam” and “Tension” there is also another song from the latest album, “Hold on to now”) and futurerevisiting the same “Come into my word” in an almost trance key and “Slow” in an acid rave version à la Chemical Brothers. He’s not afraid to dust off some of the embarrassing songs from his early days, like that 1986 dance-pop reinterpretation of the ’60s R&B classic “The Loco-Motion.”: “Now I’m taking you back to the 80s: some will relive them, others will experience them for the first time after having long dreamed of being able to go back in time”, she says, becoming a living time machine. At one point he brings a young fan up on stage: “When was the first time you heard one of my songs?”, he asks her. And she, incredulous next to the icon: “I was a teenager and the song was ‘Dancing'”. They end up singing it together, amid general laughter.
When the synth riff of “ starts at the beginning of the encorePadam padam”, the area in front of the main stage of Sziget becomes a pandemonium: they all let loose, abandoning all inhibitionsrubbing their half-naked bodies oiled by sweat. She also lets loose on the stage, climbing on the dancers’ bodies like someone who knows what she’s doing (there’s also a bit of Italy in the dance troupe, with Joseph Giofrèlaunched by “Amici” in 2012 before making a career in the US and working alongside pop stars such as Ariana Grande, Pink, Dua Lipa, Jennifer Lopez and even Taylor Swift): “I know you wanna take me home and take off all my clothes,” she sings, ideally showing a middle finger to those who had considered her finished.before delivering the final blow with “I can’t get you out of my head”, which has now become a cult hit (what comes after, from “Where the wild roses grow” to “Love at first sight”, in the encore part, is appendix).
.The nice thing is that it doesn’t sound pathetic: also thanks to the complicity of the public, who venerate her as an icon (she is), Kylie exudes charm and stage presence that many of her colleagues for whom she paved the way dream of having. She is a survivor who finally takes back what belongs to her on the stage of Sziget.
