It’s Impossible To Leave A Pink Concert Without Falling In Love With Her

“Where the fuck is Pink?”

We’re 30 seconds into the opening track of Pink’s Sydney show — it’s ‘Get The Party Started’, because of course — and although I can hear her booming vocals echo around Qudos Bank Arena, I’m struggling to see just where the singer is.

But clearly I’m a Pink arena show rookie, because instead of looking at the stage, where most singers usually are, I should have been looking up.

The woman born Alecia Moore is dangling upside down from a gigantic crystal chandelier about three metres above the stage, stretching out an arm and leg into thin air. If hanging upside down is impacting on her ability to sing, she’s doing a very good job of hiding it — her vocals are as clear and pitch-perfect as if she was standing stock still, and the right way up.

In the next verse she goes one further, and hooks her feet up into the chandelier, allowing her to stretch her arms outwards and wave joyfully at the crowd — still upside down, still singing like nothing is terrifying about this position. Eventually, the chandelier lowers to the ground, and Pink is the right way up, still singing like nothing has changed.

It’s pretty amazing that Moore is even able to stand tonight, let alone hang upside down. Earlier in the week the singer was rushed to St Vincent’s Hospital “in excruciating pain”, caused by a nasty gastric virus, throwing her carefully laid tour plans into chaos.

But after a few days of hydration and rest, Pink is finally here, and even cracking jokes about her brief hospital visit. “I’m not contagious. I promise,” she told the crowd shortly after second song ‘Beautiful Trauma’ wrapped up. “I hope I didn’t screw up anybody’s week. I’m sorry if I did. But we’re gonna have fun tonight.”

Let’s be real: Pink could probably screw up everybody’s week hundreds of times, and still her fans would still be here. Her popularity in Australia is unlike anything any other international popstar has experienced here. She holds just about every touring record we have — in fact, her The Truth About Love tour was the biggest ever by a female artist in Australia in history. Additionally, TTAL was the top-selling album in Australia two years in a row (that is, you guessed it, also a record).

Her immense popularity has been the subject of plenty of curious articles — I know because I wrote one of them — but at the end, Pink is popular because she delivers what she promises at the start of the show tonight: fun. Whether you’re a rusted on Pink fan or a adamant hater of pop music, it’s impossible not to swept up in the madness of a Pink show. You simply cannot not have fun. And if you really don’t, then that’s a reflection on your own joyless existence.

Of course, there’s all the trappings of a standard pop arena show: synchronised dance numbers, costume changes, some truly outlandish props — at one point a gigantic blow-up Eminem is wheeled out to deliver his guest verse on ‘Revenge’, and Pink soars into the air to kick him squarely in the nose. That was worth the price of admission alone.

But then there’s the stuff which you can only find in a Pink show. Like the moment when she’s spinning upside-down, held by her ankles by a very trustworthy dancer — all the while managing to belt through ‘Try’. Or when she’s in mid-air (again) and gently grinding up on another dancer for the intensely sensual ‘Secrets’.

 If you can’t have fun at a Pink show, then that’s a reflection on your own joyless existence.

Or — most impressively — when she slingshots around the massive arena on wires for the standout ‘So What’, backflipping just above the crowd’s heads. At one point my section has to duck quickly, because her black boots are flying just inches above us.

And that’s just the performance. At this stage in her career, Pink can fill our her two-hour set with nothing but bangers, from old favourites like ‘Just Like A Pill’, ‘Funhouse’, ‘F**kin Perfect’, and ‘Raise Your Glass’, to newbies like ‘What About Us’, ‘Beautiful Trauma’, and ‘Just Like Fire’. She even throws in a cover of Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ for good measure.

After she’s disconnected from the wires of ‘So What’, Pink returns for a final song: the quiet, introspective ‘Glitter In The Air’, a Funhouse B-side. After two-hours of constant crescendos, it’s a calming end.

And with that, Pink vanishes. Until the next run of sold out shows, that is.

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Jules LeFevre is Junkee’s Music Writer. She’s a Pink stan now. Follow her on Twitter. 

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Photo credit: Sean Finney/Live Nation