Кylie Minogue: Intimate and Live саяхаты

1998 concert tour by Kylie Minogue

the concert tour

Intimate and Live was the fifth concert tour by Australian recording artist Kylie Minogue, in support of her sixth studio album, Impossible Princess (1997). The tour marked a return to touring for Minogue, with her previous tour Let's Get to It Tour (1991) taking place seven years prior. The shows were divided into four parts; Impossible Princess, Showgirl, Cowgirl and an encore. The first featured Minogue appearing inside a multi colored cone, the second was inspired by Showgirl props and costumes, the third incorporated cowboy influenced props and a K symbol, and the fourth and final is an encore performance for "Better the Devil You Know". The tour garnered positive appreciation from music critics and commercial success. Tickets sold out as soon as dates and venues for the tour were announced, prompting the organisers to add more dates. Despite initial plans to not bring the tour overseas, Minogue decided to add three UK dates at Shepherd's Bush Empire. A live album and DVD of the concert tour was released in November 1998 and July 2003 respectively.

Kylie Minogue embarked a promotional tour in the Pacific region in late 1997. Minogue performed in Singapore and then followed with Australian state capitals Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide. Next was Auckland and she finished off in Hong Kong. After the albums European release, she went on to promote the album with concert gigs in Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands. Anderson appeared with Minogue for the first time at the 1998 Sydney Mardi Gras, but Baker was absent. Baker was anxious to tour for the first time and "did not know what to expect." It became Minogue's first album on which she had partial creative control on songwriting and composing. The album peaked at number four on the ARIA Albums Chart and number one on the Australian Music Report chart in January 1998. Impossible Princess peaked at number ten on the UK Albums Chart. Minogue returned to Australia in early 1998 to prepare for her Australian tour. Minogue's creative director and longtime friend William Baker was in Dubai with Steve Anderson, guitarist Carl Mann and percussionist James Mark. They were discussing the tour that they had booked in May 1998, wanting to hire more musicians and dancers.

Minogue's first rehearsal was in Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia. The stage was largely based on Impossible Princess but Baker and Minogue wanted to create something that would "take the audience on a journey and tease them with the unexpected, playing with their preconceptions." Minogue felt she needed to "lighten up" and have fun on tour, rid from all the criticism and what the public said about her. Deconstruction Records and Sony BMG were not in control of the tour, so Baker and Anderson took control of bookings and organisation. Minogue wanted to take "risks" with the outfits and appearances on tour, so she decided to keep her longer hair that was not present on the promotion shoots of Impossible Princess. Baker felt that her public image had "endured" and evolved severely from her "gritty black and white" "Some Kind of Bliss" days. The outfit was derived from the video of "Did it Again", but Minogue decided to re design the outfit. During the second act, Minogue opens with "I Should Be So Lucky" in a pink and glitter showgirl outfit in front of a giant glittery "K", decorated with white fairy lights. Despite favorable reviews in Australia, Minogue and Baker were worried about the reception in the UK. Minogue and Baker had suffered from depression during the time, and worried that they would turn up to the concerts to "emptiness." Performing at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, the tour received rave reviews from most music critics and Baker commented that "perhaps slightly altering London's perception that Kylie was over." Victoria Sega from NME gave it a mixed review. She wrote "There are moments of boredom – indistinguishable balladry that's not so much torch song drama as fluorescent tube flash [ ]" However, she concluded saying "yet Kylie loves this, she lives for it, and she damns all those svengalis with one twist of her knife edge heels." She had prospected that Minogue "will be back." Baker viewed felt that Minogue's fans were loyal due to her "pop songs" which he exemplified "Better the Devil You Know" and "Dancing Queen". Luke Dennehy from Herald Sun wrote an article about the show in March 2015, and said "She certainly did deliver, it was spectacular success." He went on to say "The press at the time called it her homecoming tour, our very own pop princess was back, and for the first time she was truly critically acclaimed for her performance [ ] But for many reasons, that tour was so important Kylie and how we see her now and of course for her loyal legions of fans out there." The shows had sold out in all of Australia in under ten minutes. Minogue did not plan to tour England, but due to public pressure, she staged three small shows in London. In November 1998, Mushroom Records released the live album with the same name as the tour in Australia and New Zealand as a cassette and double CD set. The concert was released onto DVD on 23 July 2002 by Mushroom in Australia and New Zealand. "Dancing Queen" appeared on her 2002 greatest hits album Greatest Hits 87 99.