PINK LIVE IN SYDNEY

If I only had one word to describe this show then I'm not sure I'd be able to find it. Spectacular? Amazing? Tremendous? None of those seem superlative enough by themselves. I'm quite sure I've never seen a concert like it, and after 28 years of concert-going and having seen everyone worth seeing from U2, Pink Floyd and the Stones to some crappy little indie band at a pub in Waterloo, that's saying a lot. In fact, this could have been the best show I've ever seen. I'm not quite sure what I expected. Pink's always struck me as an artist with real integrity and talent far beyond the usual plastic pop divas (like the one-hit rn'b "sensation" I got dragged along to see one night who nervously lip-synched three songs and slunk away like an embarassed school girl), but I certainly didn't expect this. As much as I love Napalm Death and Iron Maiden, I've never seen Barney Greenway or Bruce Dickinson sing while hanging upside down from a trapeze four storeys in the air, and probably never will. This feat alone puts Pink a long way out in front of just about any performer ever (there is, of course, an argument that those guys don't need to pull such stunts, which is true, but watching someone do it is still very, very cool).

More than half the crowd were women, which is starkly different from the 2/3 male audiences I'm used to seeing at metal shows, and ran the gamut from middle-aged mums to little girls to 18-25s wearing rub-on tattoos and short blond wigs. Warming them up for the main event was Sydney band Faker. Their New Wave-ish sub-XTC guitar pop is catchy enough to keep a good portion of the crowd entertained for a while, and they did seem to get a surprisingly long set; at least, it appeared to be quite long. I'm not sure whether Nathan Hudson is English or if he just uses an English accent as part of his band's Britpop schtick but if it is just an act then someone should punch him in the face. The keyboard/guitar player dude ponced around so much I thought he was going to whip out a keytar by the end of it; a couple of catchy tunes aside, Faker are a bit like a crappy New Order cover band, but shittier.

Not too long afterwards, with "Highway to Hell" cranking out over the screams from the crowd, the lady a stupendous amount of Australians are still clammering to see burst out of a trapdoor in the middle of the room. With her six-piece band kicking off into "Bad Influence", Pink whizzed through the air on a harness to a main stage decked out like the titular funhouse of her current album, festooned with carnival lights and with a big slide each side of her drummer. It would be easy for me to say this was an overhyped, all-show-and-no-go debacle, but it would also be very wrong. Only the most jaded curmudgeon could not have been entertained by this extravaganza. Pink is the real deal: pint-sized but larger than life, tough and tender, and there's an air of genuine honesty in whatever she does. Instead of just a randomly-ordered parade of hits, the Funhouse show is more like a musical in five acts. After the tough rock chick opening stanza, she shifted into a more seductive mode, writhing around on a couch to an almost industrialized version of "I Touch Myself" before getting all bold and brassy again with "So What".

Then the dancers and backing singers were gone as Ms Moore did "Family Portrait" accompanied only by the piano before she made herself even more vulnerable by attempting to play a guitar for "I Don't Believe You," making fun of her complete lack of ability and stopping a couple of times to ask her guitarist if she was "doing it right". A startling and thunderous version of "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You" ramped up the party atmosphere once again, during which all stops were pulled. With no more of a waver in her voice than if she were dancing around down below, Pink dangled and swung upside-down from a trapeze four storeys above the stage. Yep, Gene Simmons might fly up to the rafters, but he stands on a little platform once he's up there. Pink was being held head-down by her ankles, and singing better than dozens of her contemporaries do when they're standing still. The aerial tricks continued into the encore too when she finished off a rock version of "Get the Party Started" by bungee-jumping and closed the show by sailing above the audience dripping wet and wrapped in a huge pink ribbon.

This truly was a spectacular show. I'm not about to go out and carve "P!nk" into my flesh, start putting her music on repeat in the car or anything like that, but for a grisled old metalhead who went along to be with the wife and to see what all the fuss was about, I came away thinking I'd just seen one of the best shows ever. And that's pretty much what a concert should do.

Set list:

• Highway to Hell (intro)
• Bad Influence
• Just Like a Pill
• Who Knew
• Ave Mary A
• Don't Let Me Get Me
• I Touch Myself
• Please Don't Leave Me
• U + UR Hand
• Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)
• So What
• Family Portrait
• I Don't Believe You
• Crystal Ball
• Trouble
• Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You
• Sober
• Bohemian Rhapsody
• Funhouse
• Crazy
• Get the Party Started
• Glitter in the Air

PS: I should have mentioned this, but her band was killer. I tried to find out who they were but wasn't able to. The drummer was great and the lead guitarist is a monster.