For the first time, Mighty Hoopla came to Sydney for a festival extravaganza headlined by Kesha and Australian icons Delta Goodrem and Jess Mauboy. The festival, which is the largest LGBTQIA+ festival in Europe, had big shoes to fill arriving in Australia for the first time and so picked the iconic location of Bondi Beach for its inaugural run. This was an inspired choice, showing off the best of Australia, with the beautiful beach as the backdrop as some of the nation’s best acts, as well as international stars, took to the stage.
We arrived as Rogue Traders were hitting the stage, and lead singer Natalie Bassingthwaighte showed that she still has incredible vocal chops, with “Voodoo Child” getting the early crowd on their feet. It was great to see Bassingthwaighte in a non-musical theatre capacity after her starring role in Jagged Little Pill a few years ago, and her upcoming role in Waitress, which she will commence later this year. But she nailed the pop just as well as she does theatre and was a great start to the day.
Bardot was another early highlight, reuniting to perform live together for the first time in more than 23 years (although without Sophie Monk) much to the delight of the crowd, who were waiting for the moment. The band were in fine form although the audience were disappointed that the band only performed a 10-minute set, which was headlined by the hit song “Poison”. They were followed by a smoking ceremony, which preceded Jess Mauboy’s set, which was absolutely sublime. She commenced with “Xanadu” and “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” before moving into yassified versions of her biggest hits like “Burn” and “Pop a Bottle (Fill Me Up)”. It was a wonderful way to get everyone really raring and enjoying the festival and Mauboy performed with such class and swagger. It really was a fantastic set.
This was followed by Countess Luann, who had flown in from the US for a larger-than-life performance, before Australian icon Delta Goodrem took to the stage. Performing all of her biggest hits, commencing with “Wings” before moving into “Lost Without You” and “In This Life”, Goodrem showed off her phenomenal voice as well as an incredible stage presence, both at the front of the stage and behind the piano. Although there were some audio issues during the set, with Goodrem struggling a little bit with her tuning when at the piano, she had the crowd on their feet with a stellar rendition of Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” before she moved into “Sitting on Top of the World” and “Born to Try”. It was the perfect festival set and was well received by the crowd, who were packed out at the venue even though Goodrem was slightly early in the running order. It perhaps would have been more appropriate for Goodrem to have a later spot, but she made the most of it and was arguably the highlight of the night.
She was followed by Jamelia, who performed well, although she gave a lot of the big notes to her backing singers and Becky Hill, who gave a fantastic performance, showing off a wonderful voice during her set, which was the penultimate set of the night. For the most part, the crowd was great for this festival, with the atmosphere not too rowdy and rather joyous, with the audience really enjoying the music. The choice of headliners meant that it was quite a wide range of ages out and about but everyone seemed to connect really well. The setting was beautiful, with a number of exciting activations which made the experience even better.
The night was closed out by Kesha, who performed her Tits Out set in full. Kicking off the set with “TiK ToK”, she brought the energy from the start with stunning theatrics and great vocals, as well as a heap of engagement from the crowd. She then talked about reclaiming her songs as she performed new mixes of “Warrior”, “Crazy Kids” and “C’mon”, which were all performed very well. While the set lagged slightly in the middle, with some shocking fake guitar playing on “Blow”, she brought the energy back with “Timber” and “Die Young”, which had the whole crowd singing along. She closed out the set with an emotional performance of “Praying” before “Your Love Is My Drug” and “We R Who We R” finished off the night. It was a cathartic performance for Kesha, who claimed that Bondi Beach was her favourite beach in the whole world.
As she was closing out the show, she said to the audience, “thank you for giving me permission to be myself”, which was extremely powerful given what she had gone through in the past few years.
Overall, this was a wonderful night showing off the best of Aussie music as well as some international stars. Everyone seemed to have a fabulous time and all the acts were at the top of their game. One can only hope Mighty Hoopla is back next year because this is a wonderful addition to Australia’s festival scene and is a much needed boost to the Australian music industry.
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