Why does Melbourne love PINK?
The last time PINK toured Australia (2009), believe it or not, 1 in 34 Melburnian’s went to one of her shows. She broke concert sales records, selling 655,000 tickets. Poor old John Farnham who previously held the record had to go on tour after saying he never would.
Now, PINK is back, playing a whopping (and new world record) 18 shows at Rod Laver Arena.
Nowhere in the world is PINK more popular than in Australia, and nowhere in Australia is she more popular than in Melbourne.
OK, lets talk about Melbourne for a mo.. we love to love in Melbourne. We’re passionate about what we love. We love our footy, and 80,000 at a Collingwood v Carlton clash is typical.
Maybe we love PINK because her tour is aptly named THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE
When I asked my partner (who’s going on Saturday night) why we love PINK, she said it was because PINK loves us. PINK loves Australia, she wants to move here, buy a house here. PINK even got a tattoo in St Georges Road Northcote. Now thats love! I’m joking.. but it does say something. Melbourne loves PINK because PINK loves Melbourne? Hmm, I don’t think so. Melbourne has a mind of its own. Every yank that comes here loves Melbourne, so much so that Melbourne is tired of hearing the cliche. Oh, I love the kangaroo’s and the koala furry bear things.. oh, give me a break.
No, its something else.
PINK is fresh, with it, outspoken but measured, funny yet serious, young but old. She’s definitely not your typical female performer, and we should know, given “the” pop princess comes from Melbourne in Kylie. Hey, didn’t Kylie hold the record at Rod Laver for a while?
Is it the cute way she spells her name.. P!NK like That’s Me!bourne?
PINK does social media, and well. No bad social media, just light hearted stuff like todays.. Thanks to everyone for visiting the #pinkpopup store in Melbourne – I’m so happy you all like it!! And the pics are amazing:) on Twitter.
But it still doesn’t answer the burning question.. why Melbourne? Maybe Wikipedia will answer it I thought. Well it aint going to be the picture that accompanies her profile.. where did they get that from.. looks like PINK was doing a folk singer impersonation, but then again I don’t love her like my partner.
I remember PINK performing live on one of our award shows (Logies or Music?) and she was fan-bloody-tastic! She rocked the house, live, danced, sang, thumped her way around the set to “So What”.
But thats not it either, but I think I know what it is.. FUN!
Melbourne doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it certainly loves to laugh, and neither does PINK!
From her earliest songs and video’s, PINK has taken a light-hearted, often comical view of a situation and turned it into tracks that are totally entertaining and enjoyable. In other words, she doesn’t take herself too seriously, or doesn’t project herself that way. How refreshing is it to see the real person behind the celebrity, not the image in front.
She’s funny, cheeky, good natured, all the things we like. John Farnham at his peak was the same.. cheeky… no, I am not doing Sadie!
Melbourne loves PINK because she’s good fun and brings fun to the party.
The rest of this article came from TheAge, but also says something about her popularity in Melbourne…
So popular, that PINK has even launched her first ‘‘ pop-up store’ ’ at 1000 £ Pound Bend in Melbourne selling all sorts of PINK memoranillia like T-shirts , key rings and other merchandise not available anywhere else in the world.
‘‘ We’ve brought in props from her previous tours like the ‘funhouse bed’ and the ‘touch myself sofa’ ,’’ says Rich Stevenson, one of the store’s creative directors. ‘‘ We want fans to take photos and interact with those props.’’
But one cannot simply walk in off the street and begin interacting with the ‘‘ touch myself sofa’’ . Demand from fans is so high that entrance tickets are being rationed via PINK popupstore.com.au. Those who arrive without a booking could face a long queue.
Melbourne, of course, was the logical place to launch a shop that sells all things PINK.
‘‘ In 2009, she broke all sorts of records here,’’ Stevenson says.
‘‘ It feels like we’re giving something back to the fans by opening this store.’’
PINK (real name Alecia Moore) has brought her partner Carey Hart, and their daughter, Willow, to Australia with her. Which is no surprise, given she spends months at a time on our shores. To put her local popularity in perspective, she will play 46 arena shows here compared with the 30 she has already done across all of Europe. Even in her native US, she will do 75 concerts – not even twice the number of Australian shows, despite a population that’s 14 times the size. Already, nearly every Australian concert has sold out. Those who missed out will have to try their luck with radio station giveaways or pounce upon the handful of reserve tickets that will be released at the last minute.
All up, PINK will play to at least half a million Australians this year. Conservatively, she will haul in at least $50 million in ticket sales and her CD and iTunes sales should receive a boost. Concert merchandise is always lucrative, not to mention that pop-up store.
There’s no doubt that Australia is in love with PINK.
It’s fair to say that PINK loves Australia, too.
More PINK
- www.pinkspage.com
- PINK | THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE TOUR
- www.thetruthaboutlovetour.com
- Ticketek
- www.pinkpopupstore.com.au
- www.twitter.com/Pink
- www.facebook.com/pink
- www.wikipedia.org/pink_singer
The girl next door
Why we’re tickled pink by with PINK
The ink had not dried on our article above, when we spotted this excellent article in TheAge
How do we love thee, Pink? Let BERNARD ZUEL count the ways.
‘She is somebody you would sense would be comfortable to have a beer with.
We’re in the middle of a Pink wash, a rosy-hued run of concerts by the American pop star born Alecia Beth Moore that will attract about 700,000 people to 46 shows across Australia – 18 in Melbourne – right through until September.
Beyond the hits and the hype, why does Australia love the 33-year-old Pennsylvania native so much? Here are five reasons.
1. Girls, boys, gays and straights like her
Spiked and coloured, mouthy and earthy, Pink isn’t outrageous but she isn’t tokenistic or vanilla, either. It’s no coincidence that Adele – who’s as natural and plain-spoken as Pink and has similar appeal – remembers how, in her teens, seeing Pink was a defining moment.
While straight (married, kids, tattoos), Pink has not only been gay-friendly (‘‘ There’s only love. That’s all there is’’ ) but gay-supported . When she appeared on the cover of American queer publication The Advocate, Pink spoke of a lifetime of loving and being loved by female friends.
‘‘ They’ve been the most loyal part of what I do. They’ve been my most loyal friends, to be honest. I’ve had a lot of my gay boys around, but my gay girls are my root stalk. They’re my honesty in an ocean of bullshit,’’ she said. ‘‘ I should be gay by the way that I look and the way that I am. I just happen to not be. But it just makes perfect and complete sense.’’
What’s more, her audience pulls in blokes, not all of whom are there accompanying a girlfriend, or boyfriend. Even someone who works for a radio network that wouldn’t play Pink in a pink fit , Triple M’s Lee Simon, sees the appeal.
‘‘ Even though she is not known as a rock artist, she is somebody you would sense would be comfortable to have a beer with if you happen to bump into her at a bar,’’ Simon says.
‘‘[ There are] no airs or graces about her and she is really good at what she does. And some guys will feel comfortable going to a Pink [show] when they wouldn’t be going to a Kylie Minogue gig.’’
2. Pink is not that different from us. No, really.
OK, she’s sold millions of albums and singles, lives in a Malibu mansion and could call up Beyonce to organise a play date for their kids but she also knows she won’t be challenging Beyonce or Lady Gaga for worldwide fame. And that’s OK.
‘‘ I’m never gonna be on the cover of a bunch of glossy magazines,’’ she told The Independent last year. ‘‘ If it was a popularity contest, I’m not gonna win, and I’m so f—ing cool with that.’’
What’s more, she grew up in a regular town, has a regular family – with a brother in the military – and isn’t new to saying something when she’s royally pissed off. For example, when the American economy was tanking, she wasn’t buying either the trickle-down theory or the slash-and-burn plans of rich conservatives.
‘‘ I just know that half of my family is pissed off, and we’re all working-class people,’’ she told one American magazine. ‘‘ My mum is a nurse, and my dad was an insurance salesman, and my brother works for pennies for the military, and some of my family is unemployed. My friend got laid off from her insurance company that she worked at for 15 years and she’s a single mum with two kids. So, yeah, I hear about it loud and clear.’’
3. Off-stage, she can work with, and for, just about anyone
She’s written with Eminem and Lily Allen, danced with Lil’ Kim and ’N Sync and sung with both Steven Tyler and that bloke from Fun.
She sings about sex and freedom, unemployment and plastic pop stars, penguins and drinking. Call that mass appeal, call that box-ticking but, remember, more than 40 million album sales suggest if you don’t own a Pink album, someone near you probably does.
4. Her shows are spectacular
She might swing on a trapeze or dance inside a cage, all while singing (probably genuinely live, not Britney live) and dispensing lectures on empowerment. There are buffed bodies and clowns, sparkles and hip bumps, salsa and rock, upbeat pop and ballads, odd covers and weird melanges. It will be two hours of inyour-face entertainment that might remind you of Cirque du Soleil, if its troupe members swore like wharfies .
5. She’s Australian, isn’t she?
She might as well be. On Pink’s 2009 tour she played to more than 650,000 people in 58 shows in every capital city other than Hobart and in several regional centres. That’s more shows in one year than your average The Voice winner will do in a lifetime. That’s nearly five times the number of shows she did in the US.
In between tours she’s been back and you never get the feeling coming here is a case of doing the bare minimum. For a country still insecure about its place in the world, getting some seemingly obligationfree superstar love never hurts.
In Melbourne, where she holds the record for most shows at Rod Laver Arena (previously held by national icon John Farnham), we are so enamoured of Pink, there’s a pink pillar in the complex dedicated to her. OK, so a pink pillar is not exactly a statue in Federation Square, but can you name another performer with one?
It’s not just the sales and appearances though; it’s the attitude Pink brings that makes her almost enough of a local to start whinging about the train service and hating Collingwood like a proper Melburnian. Just ask Lee Simon again: ‘‘ We cringe when international artists say it is good to be here in ‘Mel-born ’ or something; they haven’t even bothered to learn the name.
‘‘ She has her favourite restaurants here, she does feel like a local to us. I don’t think we should ever underestimate how readily and easily people can see through a fake and she is not one.’’