Kylie Minogue gets the AccorArena dancing

This Pride weekend in Paris, the Pride parade clearly ended at the AccorArena. Nearly twenty years after her first Bercy performance, Kylie Minogue performed to a packed house. "If Madonna is the Queen of pop, Kylie is our princess," explains lawyer Pierre Landy. In the audience, there are those who weren't born in 2001 when the catchy "Can't Get You off my head" was released. And those who remember her very first hit, "The Locomotion, " in 1987, a song co-written by Carole King and sung by Little Eva and Sylvie Vartan as early as 1962.

Born in Melbourne in 1968, Kylie Minogue began her career at the age of ten as an actress in an Australian television series before branching out into singing in London in the late 1980s. At 57 years old and after a 40-year career, this new world tour, dubbed the Tension Tour , is very special. With more than 70 concerts from Tokyo to Chicago, via Copenhagen and London, the tour symbolizes her return to the top.

After ten initial dates in Australia last February, Miss Kylie performed for the first time at Madison Square Garden in New York last April. She sold out this legendary venue two nights in a row. Sunday was her big return to Paris since the Seine Musicale in 2018. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Australian star experienced a bit of a desert crossing. Having performed for the first time at the Bataclan in 2001 and then at the Zénith in Paris in 2005, she quickly became rare. At that time, she was battling breast cancer, which was treated at the Gustave Roussy Institute in Paris, while she was in a relationship with French actor Olivier Martinez. She was one of the first stars to announce her illness publicly. France and Kylie, it's a great love story. Like Lionel Richie , she speaks French very well.

At 8:32 p.m., darkness falls. Unlike Rihanna, Madonna, and Nicki Minaj, Kylie Minogue respects her audience and launches her show right on time. A 1.52m tall Tinker Bell, the divine fairy springs from the ground to rise into the air in a diamond cut of beams of light. The first fifteen minutes are electric. The whole of Bercy is on its feet. At 57, she sings in her soprano voice "Lights Camera Action," "Your Eyes," "Get Outta My Way," "What Do I Have to Do," and "Come into My World." It's only after fifteen minutes that she stops, arms in the air with her long gloves like Rita Hayworth: "Paris, are you ready? Turn me on, Bercy, I need to check how you're doing in this heat! You look beautiful!"

With a career spanning almost 40 years and seventeen albums behind her, Kylie Minogue has what it takes to deliver a two-hour show with 28 tracks, all global hits. "Pop, rap, country, electropop, dance, house, ballads... she synthesizes all genres with excellence," compliments Lionel Baert of the contemporary art website Of Art .

Smiling, funny, and a good friend to the audience, Kylie Minogue is radiant and deeply likeable. Given the heatwave that has hit the capital, it's hot, especially for her, who's moving around under the spotlight. "How can she wear a full latex outfit and her hair down in these conditions?" worries our neighbor. It's incomprehensible that the production didn't think to add fans on stage. Her makeup quickly runs, her blow-dry becomes messy, and she often moisturizes with a straw and even borrows a fan from a fan. She laughs about it while admitting it's hard. Kylie Minogue is the girl next door and, at the same time, a star.

Luckily, she changes outfits often, from a red sequined jumpsuit to match her microphone to a little black dress... which allows her to freshen up backstage and always come back looking impeccable. "It's always a pleasure to be able to say PARIS! I'm so happy to be back after all this time and that you're here!" she exclaims in French. "I'm boiling with heat, but we're going to party!" She adds, moved: "My family and old friends are in the audience." Locomotion is announced in a funny way: "We're going back in time, to a magical time, the 1980s."

Seven musicians, eight dancers, a small black-lacquered proscenium, a mini-stage in the middle of the orchestra, a few sprays of glitter and well-crafted videos, a show divided into five acts... the scenography is simple. Kylie has given many mega-shows, the peak of which was her Aphrodite Tour in 2011, but she's no longer into visual overkill like Beyoncé and Dua Lipa. Our Australian always sings with an open mic. Three backup singers are there not to sing in her place but to enrich the show. In fact, she willingly puts them front and center. On a country song where she taps her heel with one hand and twirls an imaginary cowboy hat, she brings to mind Dolly Parton.

She also sings a cappella, notably the ballad Where the wild Roses grow by Nick Cave , which she dedicates to a fan sitting in the orchestra. She always sings a cappella one of her disco hits, then suddenly a gigantic mirror ball descends and lights up Bercy. Under a shower of confetti, Kylie sings Supernova, Real Groove, Where does the Dj Go , all songs from her album Disco that she has never been able to sing on stage because of covid. At 10:15 p.m., Bercy, who has never sat down, sings with his arms in the air: "La La La, I just can't get you out of my head..." The "pink" evening ends with Padam Padam and Love at first sight . Those who were not lucky enough to get a place for this Bercy can still make up for it. Kylie Minogue will be on stage at the LDLC Arena in Lyon on July 10.