Kylie Minogue opens AFL Grand Final with live performance at the MCG

Wet weather be damned: Kylie Minogue has taken to the stage at the MCG looking as if she were on the Copacabana Beach in Rio, wearing a tank-top and micro shorts draped with a long fringe skirt. If we act like it’s summer, it will be, right?

She kicks off the most-anticipated set in AFL grand final history with Love At First Sight, flanked by dozens of dancers dressed in tight blue bodysuits and space-age helmets, like a bunch of Daft Punk clones.

There was a prelude though, the very personal acknowledgement of her own journey from Camberwell High to this moment that she had promised earlier in the week.

As images of Kylie and of footy played on the screen, and a girl in school uniform, blonde hair in pigtails and Walkman in hand, emerged onto the field, she spoke.

“Well you’ve come a long way from the start of things,” she said, and there were moments when she appeared to be talking of herself and others when she was talking of footy. “Football’s such a part of this whole town, and we know that you won’t let us down. A homecoming like this? I should be so lucky.”

With her four-piece band dressed in off-white suits and her two female backing singers, she moved through a tight and packed set: It’s In Your Eyes, Get Outta My Way, On a Night Like This and All The Lovers.

The stage is a giant X with a raised central plinth that looks oddly like a tank for water or liquid gas, despite the disco mirrors on its outer face. She starts atop it, but moves around the stage, and eventually the stadium.

There are dancers on the field and on the stage, looking like they’ve been transported from Studio 54 as the unmistakable sounds of Spinnin’ Around kick in. Somehow Kylie has managed a costume change; she’s now wearing a tight black mini-dress with Melbourne in gold letters on the back, and 2026 on the bottom hem, and silver knee-high boots. No gold op-shop shorts, but there’s plenty of bum action.

Acclaimed First Nations didgeridoo player and composer William Barton was a surprise cameo in Minogue’s blockbuster set, joining her on stage with his acoustic guitar. And Kylie has suddenly got a gold overcoat on – is this a fancy Driza-Bone? – as she sings Confide In Me against a backdrop of gold fireworks, her voice straining for those top notes.

Slow is next, with its “read my body language” refrain. We are, Kylie. It says you’re giving it your all, and it’s enough.

As Padam Padam starts, her dancers are in red Vegas-style feathers, and G Flip joins her on stage on guitar and vocals (also in red). Next it’s time for Locomotion, and there are dancers on stage in pink with black-and-white chequered pattern boots, and more on the field in multicoloured footy-jersey style Team Kylie merch (available no doubt at the pop-up shop outside the G).

As the song ends, there’s a giant Sherrin disco-ball atop that plinth, and then Kylie emerges on a hoist – somehow in yet another outfit, a flowing white bodice dress (even her boots have changed) – to sing Can’t Get You Outta My Head.

She’s hovering high above the centre square, passing through the smoke billowing out of the disco-Sherrin and it’s all quite fabulous. I love that she takes a moment to shake the hand of one of the security guys who’ve emerged to help her out of the safety harness.

It ends with her surrounded by her backing dancers, a puff of smoke and fireworks, and that’s it, a tight, packed, colourful 20-minute set, as promised. There were a few vocal wobbles, but that was marvellous, Ms Minogue.

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