Kylie Minogue performs at the WorldPride opening concert in Sydney. Photo / Anne Kucera
Sydney WorldPride has kicked off in Australia, with a helping hand from Kylie Minogue, some colourful floats, and a historical appearance by the country’s Prime Minister. Ethan Sills reports from Sydney.
Sydney’s Mardi Gras parade is a thing of legend. One of the only night-time LGBT+ pride parades in the world, this four-hour-long event, now in its 45th year, is the centerpiece of rainbow celebrations across Australia and a bucket-list event for many in the global queer community.
It is fitting then that, after leading the way in such magnificent fashion for so long, Sydney is now playing host to the first-ever WorldPride event to be held in the Southern Hemisphere. This is an event that has taken the size and spectacle of the Mardi Gras parade and spread it across three weeks and over 200 events, upping the ante with a showcase few in Australia and New Zealand are likely to see locally again in their lifetime.
Sydney is a prime and willing host for WorldPride. Mardi Gras is such a national institution in Australia in a way no LGBT+ event is in New Zealand that the city feels fully primed to take on the challenge. Rainbow flags line the streets and adorn shop windows along the main thoroughfares, and walking through stores and bars - from a free ‘queer library’ at Aesop Beauty and curated art tours, to specialty cocktails - it’s clear that the city has something to cater to all identities and interests.
Kicking things off officially last Friday was an event with something for everybody. The opening night Live and Proud concert, hosted by RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni Courtney Act and Australian Idol winner Casey Donovan, was a three-hour spectacular with over 20,000 attendees packed into the Sydney Domain, and it clearly was aimed at being as wide-reaching and celebratory as possible, without forgetting the protest origins of Mardi Gras.
The first Mardi Gras back in 1978 ended with 53 of those marching being arrested. Robyn Kennedy was among them, and delivered a stirring spoken word piece during a soaring rendition of Katy Perry’s Rise by The Voice and America’s Got Talent star Sheldon Riley, accompanied by the Out & Loud & Proud Choir. Her speech, about how the ongoing fight for LGBT+ equality is not a cause but a fight to live freely, was easily the most powerful moment of the night and a necessary statement before the full celebrations could begin.
The first of three headline performers, Australian Idol winner Jessica Mauboy, injected full camp pop glory into the proceedings, prancing around the stage in a pink leotard with a squadron of backup dancers that did little to distract from her stunning vocals. While she is not as much of a household name in New Zealand as she is in Australia, her medley of hits was a welcome surprise and a clear standout of the show.
She was followed by British hyperpop royalty Charli XCX, who went for a more subdued staging - black bra and skirt with pink boots and rainbow boa, accompanied by two dancers in matching attire - but only needed the opening beats of hits like I Love It and 1999 to showcase her talents. The crowd was at her mercy - it was more of a scream than sing-along - as she worked through her biggest tracks in a sugar rush of a performance that went by in a blur but injected the right amount of energy during the halfway point.
After a beautiful drone performance, awkwardly obscured by trees for about half those watching in the Domain, it was finally time for the one woman everyone was waiting for: Kylie Minogue. She is a certified gay icon, emphasised further by her last album, 2020′s campy Disco, but rarely performs Downunder these days, so you could feel the crowd buzz every time her name was mentioned in the hours leading up to her headline performance.
And as soon as the lights dimmed, a golden swirl appeared on the jumbo screens, and Spinning Around began, the crowd was putty in her hands. Kylie knew she was among her people, and delivered a set tailored for the crowd, forgoing most of the 80s classics for her 21st-century hits, ranging from the familiar favourites of Slow and Can’t Get You Out of My Head, to those more beloved by gay bars like Get Outta My Way and Your Disco Needs - a moment worth the cost of the airfare alone.
She saved her big reveal for last, dropping her blue and black sequined tracksuit for a blue lace dress and leotard for the final performance of All The Lovers - before her sister, Dannii, emerged from among the dancers in a matching pink number that reduced the crowd to hysterics. It was a truly camp moment during the otherwise stirring ballad that encapsulated the mood of the night in a single moment.
The hysteria of seeing Kylie live did little to take the wind out of the sails of the Mardi Gras parade the following night. Even if you’ve seen the coverage or been to a local pride parade before, the scale of Mardi Gras truly has to be witnessed live to be fully believed.
Running for close to four hours and taking over the entirety of Oxford St and the surrounding areas, even trying to navigate the streets beforehand highlights the insane scale of the parade.
And the mesh between celebration and protest, politics and capitalism, is perhaps most jarring here, with the opening floats celebrating Indigenous Australians the 78ers giving way for corporate displays of varying quality. Qantas brought a rainbow-lit cockpit and plane tail, while many, from the University of Sydney to the Fire Service and Surf Lifesavers, opted for coordinated dances that seemed stuck on an endless loop.
The event moves from the proud and affirming to the over-the-top and ridiculous faster than you can properly digest, but it’s impossible to look away, and you can’t help but admire the effort that these companies go to to put together a float. Every union and organisation imaginable, including rainbow vets and architects, showed up, and while the constant stream of About Damn Time every third float was tiring after a while, the intent was there and should be celebrated.
And history was made on Saturday night, when Anthony Albanese took to the street for his 35th Mardi Gras march, and his first as Australian Prime Minister, making him the first to ever march in the event.
It is a welcome sign of progress that comes with a significant asterisk attached: given the decades of progress between then and now, the fact it still took 45 years for a Prime Minister to walk in one of the most famous and beloved pride parades in the world only highlights how important events like World Pride and Mardi Gras are, not only as a celebration of what’s been achieved but to highlight the progress that still needs to be made.
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