Kylie Minogue admits nerves and doubt before AFL Grand Final pre‑game show

In some respects Kylie Minogue has been preparing her entire life for the set that has brought Melbourne to a pink-tinged standstill this week.

“They’re getting a show,” she said at the MCG on Thursday morning when asked what the 100,024 people at the sold-out AFL grand final, and the many millions watching at home, in pubs and at barbecue gatherings around the country, could expect from her pre-game on Saturday. “We really are throwing everything at it. They’re getting a Melbourne girl performing in her hometown, which is wild to me.”

In some respects, though, she’s only just begun to get her head around what it means. Stepping out onto the hallowed turf for a rehearsal without amplification, with just her backing singers by her side, “it just struck me … I’m singing centre stage at the MCG. I just had that little moment for myself, which was amazing and a beautiful emotion.”

“I’m hoping I don’t get too overcome with emotion – I might,” she added, urging herself to “hold it together, hold it together”.

Minogue has played plenty of stadiums in her 38-year career as a global pop music star. But she’s never played one in which she has to get on and off the stage in such quick time, rattle through a tight set, and make it coherent for a massive audience on live TV as well as those in the stands.

“With a longer show, you might have two or three songs to kind of settle in, but with a 20-minute set, I’ve got to get to that point quickly,” she said. “But I did feel when we were rehearsing that as much as the MCG is gargantuan – and even when it’s empty it has this incredible energy – it’s also like a massive hug. It’s such a communal space that it did feel good out there.”

There’s also the small matter of the weather to contend with – “is it going to be gale force winds? Is it going to be boiling hot? Is it going to be pouring rain,” Minogue pondered. “But that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?”

(For the record, Saturday is predicted to be cold, around 15 degrees, and wet, up to 15 millimetres of rain, not ideal for a performer with a penchant for Vegas-style costumes and slick dance moves.)

She declined to reveal what songs she would play, though she did reveal that Love At First Sight might be the one she most enjoys performing. But she promised a set of “songs that people know, a little bit of nostalgia, a little bit of fun, a few surprises”.

She did hint, however, that there would be a nod to her own very Melbourne, very personal story in the set.

“It makes a nice little mention of me being a young girl going to Camberwell High School and dreaming about pop music and what I might do in life, getting to the end of HSC – I’d already started acting, so there was nothing at school that made any sense to me. And then the question of what do you want to do, how are you going to live, how are you going to pay your bills, and just how far I’ve come, I guess, and it’s led me back to centre stage at home in the most iconic venue for the most iconic game, an Australian game. There’s just so much about this moment for me that’s hard for me to grasp, so I’m kind of in awe and wonder myself at this moment.”

In one of her many pre-match social media appearances this week – really, whatever the AFL is paying her, they are getting serious bang for buck – Minogue was coached in how to kick a footy by Hawthorn players Nick Watson and Jack Ginnivan, aka The Wiz and Ginni. And it seems she got way more than on-ball advice from the exchange.

“We were talking about stepping over the line, and I’ve been thinking about a lot of those parallels,” she said. “I’m not in a team sport, but I kind of am. There’s so many people working on this show, and everyone’s got each other’s back, and the self-talk in your brain, in your mind, leading up to any important gig or game – ‘you can do it, you can’t do it, this is going to go wrong, that’s going to go, what if, but maybe’ – and I just felt a nice kind of oneness with people from a completely different field.”

The doubts are just part and parcel of playing on the biggest stages, she added.

“The voices in your head ... we’ve all got the same thing. For you guys, it’s probably when you get up the race and you step onto the field everything changes.

“Same for me,” she said. “It’s like, ‘OK, there’s no turning back now. It’s showtime’.”

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