Kylie, Kylie, Kylie loves the gays.

Kylie Minogue. Soap opera star, Actress, Singer, Songwriter. Damned fine performer.

As an American, I never really understood the allure.  She only had a couple hits in the late ’80s, one of which was Locomotion – a cover of a King/Goffin tune from the ’60s.  She never really made it big in the States, but she was HUGE here in the UK and in Australia.  And, I never really understood until I attended her concert with my friend Dan at the O2 this past weekend.  After 36 very hectic hours with work and other volunteer things, I was rushing to get to the venue in time and not really in a great state of mind.

My friend Dan had his friend get me a ticket for the show – standing room on the main floor.

(By the way, I now realize why American concert venues do not do plain standing room – I almost beat the shit out of five overtanned, overplucked, oversteroided mid thirties club queens who pushed their way through the crowd and were more interested in taking their shirts off, cruising for sex on Grindr and talking instead of watching the show. Instead, I made them feel uncomfortable and kept moving towards them until they got so close to the aisle, they left. But I digress….)

The opening group was a terrible new girl group called Ultra Girls. Imagine a desparate version of the Spice Girls/Bananarama type. Terrible lyrics, good voices, overstyled hair.  Painful overall.  But, when Kylie came out, she was absolutely dazzling.  I mean it. Think Madonna without the slutty behavior.  Cher without the camp. Britney without the crazy. Gaga without the meat dress.  The first hour and half was pretty patterned – gorgeous, scantily clad, athletic dancers – both male and female, fountains, water images, columns and lots of amazing dancing.

After that hour and a half, Kylie interacted with the audience, taking requests – singing a couple songs (acapella! Take that Madonna, Britney and Cher. And by herself. with the house lights up and no spectacle – take that,  Gaga)  All of this three years after having breast cancer.  She definitely hit her target audience of gay men and straight women, and is performing multiple shows here in London over the next 10 days.

She definitely won a new fan here, and I’m not a huge fan of Brit-pop music.  Well, unless it’s anything from the 1980’s.  But, more on that later.