Which Hits Should Kylie Minogue Play In Las Vegas?

In the mid 90s Kylie was striving to run away from her SAW past and was succeeding in becoming cool and credible, donning the cover of The Face, I-D and the like, but it was the unlikely pairing with Nick Cave that opened her up to embracing and being proud of her pop past. He persuaded Kylie to go on stage at the Royal Albert Hall and recite the lyrics to ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ at that year’s poetry Olympics. The next step to accepting the song, was turning it into a torch song on her ‘Intimate & Live Tour’ in 1998; a truly beautiful version of the song that showcases not just Kylie’s vocal but her emotive delivery of what many considered a throw away song.

I must confess that I’m not the biggest fan of ‘Loco-Motion’ but in fairness to Kylie and musical director, Steve Anderson, we have had many different versions live. Starting way back on the ‘Enjoy Yourself Tour’ in 1990 when it was beefed up with Lil Louis’ ‘French Kiss’ beats, through to the 60s throwback of Abbey Road Sessions that was performed on the Summer 2015 Tour. My favourite though is the disco, camp of the Golden Tour version – with added toot, toots and new refrain ‘we can do it, she can do it, they can do it, we can locomotion yeah yeah yeah’. It’s just joyous and yes, I have done the dance routine around my lounge many times!

One of Kylie’s first signature songs that has been played at pretty much every show since it first premiered on 1990’s ‘Enjoy Yourself’ Tour, ‘Devil’ has been reworked several times but perhaps the most surprising was on 2001’s ‘On A Night Like This’ Tour which saw the track being given an old school cabaret makeover. Kylie wore a cream suit with top hat and even engaged in a little tap dancing too. Perfect for Vegas!

Kylie’s rebirth as a cool dance-pop diva came in 1994 with the epic ‘Confide in Me’ which has made the setlist for many of her shows since the end of the Nineties; in original form for Intimate & Live, with added Big Brothers mix elements for the Aphrodite tour and Abbey Road version on the 2019 Summer tour. However, my personal favourite is from Fever 2022, when dressed as a policewoman, Kylie dance-fought with a male acrobat in a battle complete with some record scratching.

‘Spinning Around’ was the track that relaunched Kylie’s pop career way back in 2000 when it gave her a first No.1 on the UK singles chart since ‘Tears on my Pillow’ some 10 years earlier. My favourite live incarnation of the track was first seen in 2005 and again on Showgirl Homecoming at the end of 2006 and early 2007. It was part of a 90s-inspired rave section called ‘Everything Taboo’ and followed ‘Shocked’ and ‘What Do I Have To Do’ which both had samples of other PWL era Kylie tracks cleverly weaved in. ‘Spinning Around’ would also get added 90s dance appeal with house piano and excerpts from the hits ‘Finally’ and ‘Such A Good Feeling’. The dancers outfits, the samples and the screen graphics are the cherry on this throwback cake.

This song was made for the live stage – in fact Kylie performed this to arguably the biggest audience of her career when she sang it at the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in 2000. It’s been a firm favourite on tour setlists ever since, with lyrics that many fans agree with ‘On a night like this, I wanna stay forever’; it always gets the crowd going. The best version for me, came on 2014’s ‘Kiss Me Once’ tour when Kylie gave us a laser show spectacular to accompany this song, climaxing with the middle 8.

I remember hearing this song for the very first time at Hammersmith Apollo on the ‘On A Night Like This’ tour and even though it sounded much more laidback than the version that was released it was definitely hypnotic and pretty instant with the La, la, la’s. Appearing on every tour since (bar the pseudo live show ‘Infinite Disco’) there have been some great versions; from incorporating Dr Who’s theme to Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain. My pick though is from iTunes Festival and Kiss Me Once Tour in 2014. It starts with a slightly otherworldly build, before hitting with the perfect, slightly seedy, throbbing bass that just sees the song go off!

Sat on a crescent moon high above the crowd, Kylie followed ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ with this ballad version of Fever’s final hit ‘Come Into My World’ as the hoists take the moon (on most nights at least!) further towards the crowd before delivering her to the stage by the end of the performance. The harp strings and the staging give it an almost lullaby quality! Simply beautiful.

Mashing up the lead single from ‘Body Language’ with the Donna Summer classic ‘Love To Love You Baby’, Kylie and her team created a very sexy, slinky, bedroom bop as one of the many standouts in lockdown concert ‘Infinite Disco’. There’s been so many good versions of ‘Slow’ live over the years, lending itself well to a makeover, but this rendition just pips the others for me.

K-Y-L-I-E just love the way that you move! Kylie goes all cheerleader as ‘Heartbeat Rock’ morphs seemlessly into ‘Wow’ for this performance from X2008. Making full use of the digital screens and floors that formed the stage full of bright American Football style font spelling out her name gives way to neon lights that mirror elements of the single’s video. Kylie does superbowl in one performance!

This performance has to be the ultimate culmination of Kylie the Showgirl! Aprhodite’s tour was Kylie’s biggest staging with ambitious water fountains, acrobats dangling into water jets and a stage that had a splash zone. She ended the show with an old Hollywood inspired performance, wearing a vintage style swimsuit with bejewelled swim cap and short cape, she looked like she was controlling the water jets as they burst into life just behind her, before her and her dancers ended up on a what looked like a giant tiered cake as the water jets surrounded them and acrobats spun from the ceiling sending water over the fans in the Splash Zone.

Tickets for Kylie’s Las Vegas residency go on sale on 9th August. Why not relive some of these great tour moments above with DVDs and Blu-Rays at Amazon.

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