"The suspense is wild..." - KYLIE X2008

It's great having a sense of accomplishment, especially of the sort that comes from achieving one of your life's goals.

I saw Kylie Minogue in concert. This is amazing because she has NEVER (and probably will never) travel tour the US. Insultingly, she went to South America and totally did a big "F-off!" the States because, well, the poor fools don't know good music when they hear it. What's more, I heard one of my favorite artists in one of my most favorite locations in the world--Hong Kong. And EVEN MORE eXciting was being able to see it with one of my greatest friends in the world, Ms. Diadra of Concord, NC.



The whole thing is almost magical in how it transpired. I was on a random website and out of the corner of my eye I see an advertisement with Kylie front in center. I assumed it was for her tour DVD, but I decided to click on it to get an idea of how much the price was. Turns out that skimming is for morons. It was for her tour, and I must say that it was heavenly inspired that I would be in Asia at this time, so close to two of the locations where she would be performing. I ordered the tickets less than a week before she was to perform, so I got craptastic seats...but the fact that I had seats at all is an amazing thing. Word to your mother.

I had class (a presentation, actually) on Wednesday, so I couldn't leave Xiamen until Thursday. I took the 7:25 flight out, almost missing it because my HAIR GREASE got caught during the security check, but made it to Shenzhen. I landed, and instead of looking for the bus that Diadra told me about (around 10 kuai), I decided that I was too tired, had too much stuff, and would take a taxi instead. I left the airport and was attacked by a portly man who beckoned me to follow him. After asking him if he knew where Diadra's place was (she's pretty famous around these parts--no, j/k. Actually, she lives pretty remote from the city's center), I followed him to a what looked like a bus stop where other people were standing. After asking some questions, I found out the people were taxi-cab drivers who were waiting for their taxi to arrive. It arrived about 7 minutes later, but...it wasn't a taxi. It wasn't a primary color, nor did it have a meter, but it looked like any-old car you'd see on the street. Because China has taught me to be brave, I climbed in. Hence, I present to you fine folks my first experience riding a notorious illegal taxi.

I could have been driven off to some isolated place, robbed, and injured. But, instead I was just dropped off at the wrong school. No biggie.

I met Diadra who has purply-brown hair now at a shorter length, and we napped (we're a bunch of old foogies). Afterwards, we took the K-wu-san-san (K533) to the Shenzhen border, but before crossing we met up with two of her friends who were coincidentally going to the Kylie concert as well--the Surly-Irish-Man Darahm, and the gay-Californian-Taiwanese Nick. And the fun began.

We made it to Hong Kong, and because we were running late, we checked into a hostel where I changed into this banging ensemble (basically, I changed shirts), and we hustled to take the X21 across Hong Kong to the airport, nearto where the Asia World-Arena was located. We sat on the top of the double-decker bus (my first time), and watched the night scenery pass by. We then rode across what used to be the longest suspension bridge in Asia as neon lights and the opportunity to see Kylie Minogue twinkled in the distance. I would have taken my camera, but since I believed erroniously that they would check bags at the entrance, all my Kylie moments are in my head and on Youtube. What a shame.

We arived--the place was packed. We were several minutes late, and fearing that the concert would start soon, we dashed to the box office to pick up our tickets. Everything worked out fine, and Diadra and I took our seats in section U while Nick and Darahm were in R. There was a DJ performing in the area I guess in the place of an opening act, and he played a lot of unknown remixes to some of Kylie's lesser known songs (like, Boombox). A large purple satin curtain was masking the stage, and a lone smoke machine blew like a the little engline that could in an effort to fill up the arena. We were poised and ready for the show to begin.

And although the concert was supposed to start at 8, Kylie rolled her ass in around 8:58.

Oh, but how she began!



She opened with SPEAKERPHONE. I played that song too death, and I think it's the best upbeat song on the album. In the video, notice the the animations that are on the screen. And imagine them 8 billion times bigger. And Kylie's entrance on top of the speakers from the deaths of the stage--priceless. She's a champion!!

I screamed like a bitch for the majority of the concert. And I danced in our section filled with ex-pats over 50 and rhythm-less Hong-Kongers. Diadra had/has a fever (I forgot to make a joke about how one of Kylie's most popular albums is called Fever), so she still had the Kylie spirit.

Some of the highlights of the concerts--
Kylie changed outfits six times, and each one was fabulous (although I think the one that referenced American footballers was a little 马马虎虎, it still wasn't bad). I read somewhere that Jean-Paul Gaultier designed the outfits for the tour, and they did seem to adhere to his style in that they were too long for heavy choreography, yet still modern and captured the essense of the songs and the sets. Coincidently, he also designed costumes for my favorite singer from HK--Leslie Cheung 张国荣 for his last tour before he died. It's amazing how great minds think alike.

The songs list covered all the songs from X, yet she still did all of her major hits, including some really old ones like "Wouldn't Change a Thing," "Better the Devil You Know," and closing the concert with "I Should Be So Lucky" (I believe the motivation for doing so many old hits is due to her audience--mostly British ex-pats. The songs were all hits in England when they were released).

She didn't do anything like "Boombox" (or as Bomi called it, Boom-pah), "Cherry bomb" or any of the R&B songs such as "Almost a Lover" or "After Dark" from Body Language, but she didn't do anything bad...

Except for "Your Disco Needs You." This is the only Kylie Minogue songs I've ever deleted from my computer. Yet, I sang along even to that.

Kylie also sang some covers...surprisingly. She has a whole set devoted to a nautical theme, so she could do "Loveboat"...and, to the most lyrically-tragic and popular song ever:
"Copacabana." I still don't understand why, but Kylie--you betta work it, gurl!

Kylie looked AMAZING, by the way. She was doing splits suspended by a crew of backup dancers (not her best troup...sadly), while wearing 6/7/8/9 inch heels. She was working it out.

I had a semi-religious experience during the concernt. I was so happy during "The One" that I almost starting crying. Well, maybe I did, if you count being misty-eyed as crying. In my defense, she had just showered the arena in gold glitter. Here's a performance from the DVD:



[She sounds a little raggady in this performance, but she sounded SUPERB in HK.]

The whole tour is so popular, it even has a fucking Wikipedia entry!

So, I haven't been this happy since seeing Jill Scott earlier this year. It's good too since I would probably have been sad since my family and friends are all celebrating Thanksgiving in the states. Granted, I would trade Kylie for one more Thanksgiving with my Grandma, but things standing as they are, if I have to bee so far I was from the people I love most, then I'm glad I spent my time in HK, with a gay Taiwanese man, Little Di-Di, dancing the night away to the Princess of Pop.

<3