.: Cath’s Blog:.

Wow

In My Arms

My friend Jodi made a book to give to Kylie on her Birthday at the Showgirl show in Melbourne.

Now the show is cancelled, but the book hopefully will still be delivered to Kylie through her Management team.

You can see the book HERE.

 SYDNEY, (AFP) - Australian pop star Kylie Minogue has been diagnosed with breast cancer, prompting her to cancel her current Australian tour, her touring company said.

“Frontier Touring Company…confirmed that Kylie’s tour has been postponed due to health reasons,” the company said in a statement.

“Whilst at home in Melbourne with her family this week…Kylie was diagnosed with early (stage) breast cancer,” the statement said.

“She will undergo immediate treatment and consequently her Australian tour will not be able to proceed as planned.”

Minogue was said to be disappointed at having to postpone the shows.

“I was so looking forward to bringing the Showgirl tour to Australian audiences and am sorry to have to disappoint my fans,” she was quoted as saying in the statement.

“Nevertheless hopefully all will work out fine and I’ll be back with you all again soon.”

Minogue had been due to arrive in Sydney from Melbourne on Tuesday to officially begin the Australian leg of her tour which began in Britain.

Accompanying her is her French beau, Olivier Martinez, who has been staying with her and her family in Melbourne, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Minogue’s promoter Michael Gudinski wished her a speedy recovery and said all her fans would be praying for her.

“I’m hoping and praying because the doctor found it so early that everything will be OK,” he told the Seven Network.

“Let’s just give her time to go through what she’s going through and we’ll worry about all that in the future.

“Our thoughts, and I’m sure all the legions of Kylie’s fans, will be with her all the way.”

Minogue, who rose to fame in the 1980s as an actor in the popular soap opera Neighbours and later launched a pop career, was due to play six shows in Sydney from Thursday.

‘The Showgirl Tour’ was also scheduled to tour Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth over the next month.

Her headlining appearance at this summer’s Glastonbury Festival is also expected to be cancelled.

It was a bit of a last minute thing, but me and Steven bought tickets to go and see Kylie again. The seats were not quite as good as last night’s but the vibe was awsome.

We went out afterwards and met up with Cassandra, Ryan, Mike, Hanz & Darkhorse and we went again to the Hollywood Show Bar.

They had a funny drag queen taking the piss out of Kylie…YDNY was very funny, especially the spoken french section.

Showgirl Greatest Hits Tour 2005 Brochure Text:

It is June 2nd 1998, and the newly appointed ‘Impossible Princess’ of pop is about to transform herself, her career, and her destiny in the three minutes it will take her to belt out a faithful rendition of one of the most famous pop songs of all time…

With a giant glittering pink ‘K’ towering above the stage, and flanked by two male dancers emblazoned in pink feathers, she emerges resplendent in full-feathered head-dress and sequinned bodice, descending the stairs to the stage, lighting them up as she goes. Kylie Minogue, Showgirl has arrived, and Abba’s Dancing Queen couldn’t be a more fitting soundtrack as Melbourne’s Palais Theatre transforms into peak-hour Mardi Gras.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time,” she told the crowd that night. She wasn’t referring to the seven years since she had staged her last full-scale concert, however, but to how she instinctively felt, as did the gathered crowd, that she was finally being allowed the courtesy of ‘being Kylie’. Night after night, as the standing ovations took the show way beyond its planned schedule, she secretly knew that her instincts were right. To be proven beyond any doubt by the direction her career would now take, and influenced fundamentally by that one evening, she had finally found the confidence to consider that maybe - just, maybe - her position as one of the greatest popular entertainers of her generation was at last a possibility.

It may be a surprise to some but Kylie has a rich and varied history of live performance behind her. At times riding on the pure irony her past allows, at others reflective and earnest, her shows have become renowned for being eclectic and often unpredictable. From stadiums to the smallest venues, and from wind-swept festivals to surprise party night performances at gay clubs, it is her desire to entertain in whatever form that is required that is the backbone to all of her shows.

With the mania that had encased her life during her initial flourish of success, she had consciously waited for the right opportunity before taking her first tentative steps into live performance. Her very first would be a one-off live club appearance at Canton in Hong Kong during a promotional trip in 1988, witnessed only by a select few, but in true Kylie style her next ‘tentative step’ would prove itself a baptism of fire. Just twelve months later Kylie stepped into the spotlight for four live shows in Japan, the pinnacle being a sold-out night at Tokyo’s Dome stadium in front of a staggering 40,000 fans.

Disco In Dreams, as the shows were tagged, gave Kylie, nervous and inexperienced, the opportunity to test the waters away from her home territories of Australia and the UK. For a performer falsely dogged by rumours of miming and of enlisting studio wizardry to enhance her vocals, the gigs also provided Kylie the chance to prove once and for all that she could indeed sing, and that she was more than capable of recreating her vocals live on stage. The stage set and instrumental backing tapes over which Kylie would perform left a little to be desired, but the step was an important one, and gave her the extra dose of confidence needed for what she would experience on her return to the UK only days later.

Inspired by Sunday nights of his younger days spent watching acts like The Byrds and Van Morrison on ‘concert package tours’, Pete Waterman had formed The Hitman Roadshow, taking a number of his acts on the road, with Kylie topping the bill. Her Japanese show was adapted to be played out in ten theatres around the UK, and with ticket giveaways to the under-eighteens on radio phone-ins and in press competitions, chaos ensued.

Stories of kids enlisting family and friends to amass multiple copies of the precious ‘Kylie Coupons’ found inside regional newspapers were abound, and switchboards on local radio stations found themselves barely able to cope with the response to ticket competitions live on-air. With Kylie’s record sales into their millions in little over a year, Waterman had almost deliberately underestimated the interest in her first UK shows - proven further by the fraction of the attending fans at each gig who actually made it inside the venue.

The success of both the Far East and UK gigs sent out a clear message to Kylie and her team; that a forty-minute eight-song set - despite the seemingly record-breaking number of costume changes and acre of tabloid coverage - didn’t come close to giving her audience what they deserved. She set the wheels in motion for the development of her first full-scale tour, and dates were pencilled in for just a few months later.

Much of this tour’s set-list would be based on material from Kylie’s first two albums, alongside most of her singles and more than competent covers of some of her own favourite songs. Backed by a full band, the Enjoy Yourself tour finally gave Kylie the opportunity to quench her increasing thirst to show what she felt capable of as a live performer. The result, two hours of pure energy-driven entertainment, took many by surprise, and critics couldn’t help but give Kylie her due, admitting that there might be more to this ’soap star’ than a handful of catchy pop songs might have previously suggested.

Kicking off in Brisbane, it was during the tour through Australia, Asia, Europe and the UK that Kylie would release her first real milestone single, Better The Devil You Know. The song illustrated, quite significantly, the increased artistic control taken on the tour, in both style and performance, and made a fitting encore to the show. If those attending earlier dates found themselves somewhat unfamiliar with this powerful new track, by the time the tour closed in Bangkok it had not only become Kylie’s tenth smash-hit single in a row, but was already well on it’s way to establishing itself as her signature anthem.

Following the tour, the remainder of 1990 would witness many changes for Kylie. Probably the most important was her discovery of song writing, and the desire to now expand the artistic and creative control she was gaining over her career. With a new album already in the works, containing for the first time a number of self-penned songs, and a new found love of live performance, she quite inevitably earmarked plans for another tour the following year. Since much of her time had by then been spent absent from home shores, she felt that the Rhythm of Love tour should be her way of saying a special ‘thank you’ to all the fans that had remained so loyal since the start of her career. Armed with a brand-new set-list, an updated line-up of musicians, and joyously eccentric stage-wear, by February 1991 she was back on the road playing a string of concerts in all of Australia’s main cities.

As expected, public demand to take the tour overseas quickly mounted, and although additional dates were added in Asia, with her fourth album waiting to be recorded and other pressing commitments, the UK and Europe had to wait. Rather than disappoint, however, a continuation of the tour later that same year was promised.

The Let’s Get To It tour, updated to accompany the new album of the same name, again contained much self-penned material, and would prove to be a far more rocky road to travel for Kylie than in previous years.

Hindered by the tabloid coverage it received from the outset, and compounded by production problems at the opening night in Plymouth, Kylie’s attempts to create a bigger and better show than ever before were somewhat overshadowed. Parents of many younger fans even kept their children away from shows following tabloid reports of Kylie’s ’sexploits’ with her bevy of male dancers on stage, reports that proved wholly fictitious. Her stage wardrobe, by designer John Galliano, also unwittingly provided front page headlines with journalists once again comparing her to Madonna, and in this case questioned whether the latest show was nothing more than an attempt to emulate the US star’s controversial Blonde Ambition Tour. Of course, the now all-too-familiar intrusion of the press was not enough to dampen the fans’ enthusiasm or excitement for wanting to see Kylie in person, and from the moment she appeared centre stage in a blaze of light, the crowd went wild, remaining at fever pitch until the close of the show with Better The Devil You Know twenty-one songs later.

Despite the public’s supportive response to the show, this would be Kylie’s last full-scale tour for almost seven years. Her outlet for live performance turned instead to a variety of experimental and unexpected one-off shows dotted throughout the majority of the 1990s, and built upon her first such appearance, her much-acclaimed performance of Help at a Memorial show for the late John Lennon during 1990. She took on regular, and always flamboyant, appearances at London’s G-A-Y club nights, became a favourite of Sydney’s Mardi Gras, and even performed Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves alongside Elton John in full drag at a 1994 fundraiser for Stonewall. Forever inquisitive about the possibilities opened up to her through collaboration, she also appeared alongside Nick Cave on a number of shows, with the Manic Street Preachers at a low-key London gig, and opened Melbourne’s Crown Casino alongside Ray Charles and John Farnham. Many other similar ‘experiments’ followed, all helping towards widening Kylie’s understanding of what any future tours of her own could incorporate. And when she did eventually find herself back on the road, it would prove to be one of her single greatest triumphs.

On the back of the more adult sound of her latest and most misunderstood album, the Intimate and Live tour revitalised her love of performing her own songs to a live audience. Australia had taken the Impossible Princess album to its heart and made it a huge hit, the only territory to truly do so, and whilst using a live show once again to thank the many loyal fans in her home country, she also took the opportunity to throw herself head-first into putting on a spectacular evening’s entertainment.

A limited budget with barely two pennies to rub together, as Kylie herself put it, dictated a carefully conceived production, and when, on occasion, Kylie was unable to realise all her dreams for the show, the tour motto was brought into force: “if in doubt, apply more glitter!” Despite the tight purse strings, with this added sparkle, and more importantly with Kylie performing a full spectrum of her back catalogue with unprecedented confidence and abandonment, no one from the audience, backstage or front of house had time to notice. With eighteen sell out shows, constantly added to through sheer demand, and a peak-time television special that captured Kylie at functions, parties, and backstage, alongside footage from the show, the whole thing was deemed unbeatable. Kylie received the best reviews of her career, with many commenting on the strength of her performance, her vocals and most notably the sheer stage presence that she now displayed.

Despite initial plans not to take the show outside of Australia, pressure from UK fans, who had heard about the show in great detail from the internet, forced Kylie to relent and bring the show to London in the form of three scaled-down shows at the Shepherds Bush Empire. The shows received the same euphoric reaction as back home, and with audiences on their feet throughout, press reports predicted her return to the top of the charts. The experience, and subsequent feedback, reiterated to Kylie the certainty to which direction her showgirl incarnation would now take her.

With a new record deal, and with confidence at a high, Kylie was quick to re-ignite the faith of her UK audience with Light Years, an album full of some of the most perfect pop songs she had ever recorded. Released in 2000, she suddenly found herself dominating the UK and international charts once again, and was keen to reinterpret the album as a live show; but not before she would take centre stage for one of the most witnessed events in television history.

Event organisers of the Olympic Games 2000 in Sydney had put together the most astonishing and theatrical closing ceremony in the competition’s history, with Kylie as the keystone to the proceedings. As the appointed ‘queen’ of Sydney’s Mardi Gras and London’s G-A-Y club night, she had been their first choice for a ceremony of such high camp.

Her performance, reprising the Intimate and Live showgirl persona, and again performing Abba’s Dancing Queen, provided Kylie with her largest audience ever, both through the 180,000 people present, and more astonishingly from the reported four billion TV viewers around the world who tuned in that night. Not since Elvis Presley’s 1973 worldwide telecast attracted 1.5 billion viewers had any single pop star been watched by so many in one evening.

Having hit the headlines around the globe for the sheer scale of the event, and having subsequently performed again at the opening ceremony of Sydney’s Para-Olympics soon after, Kylie seized the opportunity to announce details of her new tour. On A Night Like This became the fastest-selling concert tour of Kylie’s career when tickets went on sale that November, and with dozens of sell-out shows kicking off in March 2001, she had succeeded in establishing herself as one of the most in-demand live entertainers. Labelled by many as a greatest hits tour of sorts, Kylie revisited her back catalogue alongside new material. From the opening bars of Loveboat, through long-ignored fan favourites like Hand On Your Heart, to the encore of Spinning Around, the tour, every night, was an intoxicating mix of pop, cabaret, camp, glitz and glamour, pleasing a simply adoring crowd.

Amidst the frenetic dance routines and various showpieces, Kylie premiered a new song, which had been recorded immediately before the start of the tour. Whilst the crowd showed their appreciation, their unfamiliarity dictated few comments on it being the highlight of the evening, unaware of what this new song was about to become.

Can’t Get You Out Of My Head was to be the lead single from her then forthcoming album, Fever, which became the most successful single and album of her entire career. The album alone sold seven million copies, and the Fever tour that followed in 2002 soon became regarded as a show of true pop phenomenon. With its unprecedented and ambitious stage sets and technological wizardry it broke Kylie’s own box office records with fifty sold out nights across the UK, Europe and Australia.

Alongside her creative director and collaborator William Baker, and favoured musical producer Steve Anderson, she created a set-list enhanced with themed segments that would forcibly widen perceptions of her as an artist. Fans and assembled press at the opening night in Cardiff could barely believe the sheer magnitude of such an eclectic and ambitious show, and how by featuring both favourite and lesser-known songs in so many radically different styles added an unpredictability to the two hours she was on stage. Highlights included Spinning Around set in the world of Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange, The Loco-motion meets Rocky Horror via Prince, and a hauntingly sorrowful rendition of Dave Berry’s 1964 hit The Crying Game, which saw Kylie showered with red rose petals before disappearing tear-stained beneath the stage. Perhaps for the first time, and irrespective of the show’s impressive budget, Kylie was provoking emotion from her audience beyond the euphoria they had known in the past.

Today, with her Ultimate Kylie greatest hits album, recent dalliances with jazz, and the decision to finally headline the Glastonbury music festival, we can only speculate where Kylie’s continuing story may take her next. For now, however, she brings us Showgirl: The Greatest Hits Tour. Here to entertain and astound, tonight is a spectacular culmination of each and every one of these past tours and appearances. Prepare yourself for a wondrous evening of both pop and theatrical indulgence whilst considering that this could well be the last time that Kylie treads the boards in this, her most beloved incarnation, as the ultimate showgirl.

Words by Neil Rees and Nigel Goodall

Tonight was awsome, I finally got to see the Kylie Showgirl Tour in Manchester. This is something I had been looking forward to for a long time.

I met up with Brad, Mike, Mullo, Darkhorse, Steven & his mum in Spirit at 6pm and headed on down to the gig at about 7:30pm.

By the time I got into the gig I had missed the support act…thank goodness and just waited for the Showgirl to take stage.

The setlist was….

SHOWGIRL
01. Better The Devil You Know

02. In Your Eyes

03. Giving You Up

04. On A Night Like This

SMILEY KYLIE
05. Do You Dare/SBIT/Keep On Pumpin It
06. Shocked/Do You Dare
07. What Do I Have To Do/Keep On Pumpin It Up/I’m Over Dreaming/It’s No Secret/What Kind Of Fool
08. Spinning Around/Step Back In Time

DENIAL
09. In Denial
10. Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi
11. Confide In Me

WHAT KYLIE WANTS, KYLIE GETS
12. Red Blooded Woman/Where The Wild Roses Grow

13. Slow
14. Please Stay

DREAMS
15. Somewhere Over The Rainbow
16. Come Into My World

17. Chocolate
18. I Believe In You
19. Dreams

KYLESQUE
20. Hand On Your Heart

21. The Locomotion

22. I Should Be So Lucky

23. Your Disco Needs You

MINX IN SPACE
24. Put Yourself In My Place

25. Can’t Get You Out Of My Head

ENCORE
26. Especially For You

27. Love At First Sight

After the show we all met back at Spirit and then went along to the Hollywood Show Bar off Canal Street. I had lots and lots of fun…and alcohol.

AUSSIE superstar Kylie Minogue proved that she is the undisputed princess of pop with an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza at the M.E.N. Arena.

Her multi-million pound Showgirl tour, which boasts feathers, sequins and designer frocks, had 16,000 fans screaming, clapping and dancing for two hours of high camp, first class entertainment.

She kicked off the evening with floor filler Better the Devil You Know and followed it with In Your Eyes, new single Can’t Stop and On a Night Like This.

Her much-publicised corset was impressive but not as fabulous as the massive blue and white plumage sticking out of Kylie’s teeny bottom. When she waggled these feathers, she looked like a sexy little peacock.

The show was never sleazy but upping the risqué factor were a shower scene, plenty of tight Lycra, gladiator outfits and near naked men throughout.

Kylie knows her fans and how to please them.

Her arrival in Manchester has inspired a flurry of themed events in the Village, including Kylie-oke and lookalike competitions.

Ski-pant moment

Kylie slipped in and out of outfits, marking different segments of the show. A ski-pant moment came during an 80s medley and she donned fairytale gowns for slower numbers, which dragged slightly until Kylie sang the superlative Confide in Me and I Believe In You, delivered atop something that looked like a three-tier wedding cake.

Her jazzy, show-stopping and surprising rendition of cheesy tune Locomotion had the crowd shrieking with every shake of her hip.

During I Should Be So Lucky her dancers signed their way through the song. My friend, Chris, quipped that sign language would be the Next Big Thing in Canal Street.

Kylie is the first major act to play the Arena since it was announced that the M.E.N. is to sponsor the venue for five more years.

Towards the end of the evening a previously banter-less Kylie said to the crowd: “It’s great to see you all here again. It’s been a few years since I was last in Manchester. Even the sun was out today, I feel like I’m home.

“I believe I nearly broke my own record for the most bums on seats and I wanted to do more nights here but the Arena was booked out.”

She invited everyone to sing Especially for You, then finished by asking the audience to do a Mexican wave.

“It’s my lullaby at night,” she told them. “Will you do that for me?”

And so say all of us.

Situation Vacant: Creative Director/Stylist for International Superstar based in London, UK. Salary negotiable (with fantastic allowance for six-monthly facelifts). Must have a penchant for the use of feathers, glitter and toupe tape. Knowledge of classic Doctor Who would be advantageous. Apply within, darling, as LiMBO wishes Mr Baker the best of luck for the future. And so its true, the end of an era indeed. Kylie yesterday published a statement on her official website to confirm the sad news that following recent rumours in the press, her professional relationship with Creative Collaborator and Stylist William Baker has indeed come to an end. She was keen to stress, however, that they are still “the best of friends” despite the unusual timing of the split; It is understood that recent press reports have forced this public statement from Kylie, who is known to be particularly irked by untrue press speculation about her private relationships. William himself contacted LiMBO today to reiterate Kylie’s words.“I just wanted you all to know that it was a totally mutual decision,” William tells us, “and one that was extremely difficult for me to make. Kylie and I are still close friends and despite what has been reported there has been absolutely no falling out. Thanks for all your support over the years and hope you enjoy the show!”

We would like to take the opportunity to express our best wishes to the Fantastic Mr Baker on behalf of all our visitors, and the best of luck for the future.