Pink returns to Australia, making a splash in the ‘summer of Taylor Swift’

Sezen Bakan
Feb 27, 2024, updated Feb 28, 2024

Pink kicked off the Australian leg of her Summer Carnival tour in Sydney. Photo: Instagram/@pink/@acaciaevans

Taylor Swift dominated headlines in Australia over the past couple of weeks, but fellow American star Pink had already arrived to much less fanfare for her Summer Carnival tour.

Despite her low-key reception, Pink will complete a mammoth 17 concerts across eight Australian cities through February and March.

When Pink took to the stage at the first of her four Melbourne performances at Marvel Stadium on Friday (and her seventh in Australia), she knew she wasn’t commanding the media storm Swift was while performing the same night in Sydney.

Pink’s daughter Willow regularly joins to sing their duet, Cover Me With Sunshine. Photo: TND

And she was fine with it – she’s never been one to engage in the petty one-upping among artists that gossip mags feast on.

It probably doesn’t hurt she’s sold more than three million tickets across Australia and New Zealand in her career.

“It’s the summer of Taylor Swift and [my daughter] Willow Hart,” she told Marvel Stadium.

“Two badasses, and I’m OK with it.”

Fine-tuned campy fun

When The New Daily arrives at Marvel Stadium, it’s clear fans did not spend months preparing their outfits for the event à la Swifties, but they did make concessions to Melbourne’s all-black dress code with splashes of – you guessed it – pink weaving through clothes, cowboy hats, make-up and hair dye.

A few fans even styled their hair into Pink’s signature slick coif.

Pre-show, the event almost feels like a family affair, with a mix of friends, couples and parents with young children.

Pink made quite the entrance to the Marvel Stadium stage. Photo: Instagram/@marvelstadium.au/@rcstills

Then, just after the sun has finally set and with a full moon peeking out, Pink makes her grand entrance by dropping from the stage’s ceiling.

A few mid-air flips later, she finally lands on stage and kicks off the concert with 2001 hit Get the Party Started.

This is far from Pink’s first stop in Melbourne; as she fondly reminisces, she performed at Marvel Stadium (then Telstra Dome) 22 years ago during the Rumba Music Festival.

With several world tours under her belt since, is she going through the motions, knowing her fans are just happy to see her?

Is she hiding a lacklustre performance behind the campy abundance of sparklers, motorised flamingos, confetti, trampolines and flames?

Hell no.

Pink is bursting with energy, and as polished as she can be.

This isn’t a performer who tunes everything else out and refuses to deviate from the script.

She talks with her young family who are waiting off stage; she takes a minute to chew a mouthful of Maltesers gifted from the audience; she giggles through the opening of F**kin’ Perfect as she plays with cartoonish headwear, also a gift from the crowd.

But the audience doesn’t feel short-changed.

This is all part of her casual charm, making a stadium filled with tens of thousands of fans feel intimate and relaxed.

When Pink is singing and dancing her way through decades of songs, she gives it her all – and with years of experience, she has plenty to give.

From her upbeat pop songs to her pared-back, emotional pieces such as When I Get There (written after her father’s death), Pink keeps the audience enthralled.

She has fun, she entertains, and she treats fans like friends, stopping for conversations and keeping an eye out for danger (evidenced when she stops everything to tell security to take care of an issue in the crowd).

When she does her final whirl in the air around the stadium, it doesn’t feel like a gimmick.

It feels like a chance for people in the nosebleeds to get a closer look at the singer who many would feel they have grown up with, and who has spent the past two hours performing with all the passion of someone who appreciates the fans that keep her coming back.

Topics: Celebrity, Music, Pink, Review, Taylor Swift