P!nk (Mix) Tape

This is the tale of how one of His Majesty’s Counsel learned in the law fell in love with an American music legend in a Lancashire mill town. That could be the elevator pitch for a Richard Curtis movie, but this is my tale of seeing P!nk in concert at the University of Bolton Stadium last night.

It did not start well. Not the gig, but my evening. Waiting for P!nk to start, the crowd were being entertained by KidCutUp, a DJ playing snippets of classics of all genres weaved together. We were treated to the opening lines of Bohemian Rhapsody which I was absent mindedly singing along to as a man a good fifteen years older than me passed me by and said “at least there is one song that men of our age will know the words to tonight….”

Crushed.

But also wrong. Remarkably P!nk has been going for 23 years. She released her first album when I was still in my twenties. Apparently she has aged better than I.

For those of you who do not know P!nk, let me think of a way of describing her in one word. It would be easy to reach for “feisty” or “sassy” or “fierce” but they are all deeply gendered ways of describing women and there are many reasons why, given P!nk’s outlook on life, they would be wrong. But I do not need any other word than “brilliant”.

A brilliant voice. Brilliant smile. And her Summer Carnival show is utterly, utterly brilliant.

Inevitably the opening song is Let’s Get the Party Started and we did. P!nk is one of those live artistes that seem to be genuinely enjoying the whole event. Not just enjoying it, but loving it. Having fun on the stage with her band and dancers, with the crowd being invited in to their party.

And what a party. Dancers propelled themselves across the stage on large, neon-lit wheeled pink flamingoes. P!nk descended from the large red lips that adorned the top of the stage. A riot of colour and high camp.

We wheeled through Raise a Glass, Who Knew and Just Like a Pill with the ease of a large flamingo scooter. P!nk has all the perfect party songs.

The pace slowed, but not the intensity, with one of my very favourite P!nk songs, Try. Her voice was absolutely pitch perfect as she sang the glorious lines “where there is desire, there is gonna be a flame, where there is a flame, someone’s bound to get burned, but just because it burns doesn’t mean you’re gonna die, you’ve gotta get up and try, try, try.”

There had already been an array of costume change-ups, usually with a variety of jackets, but P!nk emerged in a pink leotard to sing Turbulence from her latest album whilst performing a Cirque du Soleil style trapeze/swing act with one of the dancers. This is quite a feat. Belting out a ballad whilst hanging upside with the fabric of the swing wrapped around your legs. Strength of voice, strength of personality and, evidently, really strong core strength!

As she was elevated above the stage, P!nk’s baby pink leotard was framed perfectly in the late evening Bolton baby blue sky. It would be a shame if P!nk ever realised that not every Bolton evening is so perfect.

When P!nk was once more returned to the stage she stepped into a flowing pink skirt and transformed from circus performer to elegant singer of eloquent ballads, concluding with the duet Just Give Me a Reason.

P!nk is not just a purveyor of perfect pop and beautiful ballads. There is a real edge to her music. Raw. Sweary. Inspiring. The epitome of this is F**kin Perfect. P!nk is a master swearer. Yeah, its not big and its not clever, but used correctly, it can be f**kin perfect.

The counterpoint to the expletive laden anthem of the unusual is the sweetness of Cover Me in Sunshine which only had added sugar when P!nk was joined on stage by her daughter Willow Sage Hart to sing her part of the song.

If you have not seen the film “All I Know So Far” then I recommend it. You get to see P!nk with her family and you can see the bond between parents and children. This was a snapshot of that as P!nk beamed proudly at her 12 year old daughter before raining kisses down on her forehead at the end of the number.

P!nk, now in a pink feather cropped jacket, moved with her guitarist to the front of the stage to sing Kids in Love and When I Get There. Kids in Love is written by First Aid Kit, which for me is the musical version of when you have two really good friends from different parts of your life that finally meet and get on a like a house on fire.

When I Get There is a song about waiting to meet up with someone in heaven. P!nk introduced this with a tale of reading on Instagram that one of the audience that evening had previously scattered her father’s ashes at the Stadium. The song was dedicated to that audience member and her father. I imagine that the Bolton Wanderers ground has not seen as many tears since the locals saw Jay-Jay Okocha shimmy past a defender for the first time.

Some other members of the band and the backing singers then joined P!nk at the front of the stage to sing I am Here. This song is one of the songs currently on the playlist to be played at my funeral. It is a defiant anthem of living your life, with its ups and downs…”I am here, I’ve already seen the bottom, so there’s nothing to fear, I know that I will be ready when the devil is near, I am here…”

The song is what Mumford and Sons would produce if they were cool and edgy. Performed by a slimmed down band at the end of the stage, you could imagine this was P!nk and her friends singing and dancing around a campfire on a beach. Not that Bolton has a beach.

In between songs P!nk would tell us snippets of life, many of which she referred to as over sharing. The smile on both lips and voice was an ever present. She referred to her view of Northerners as “friendly, funny, hard working and hard drinking”, now that is a way to get the crowd on your side. She even did a pretty good job of a Lancastrian accent.

The final segment of the show saw new material Runaway seeing a return to high camp with dancers on treadmills performing 1980s aerobics in the style of Olivia Newton-John. TRUSTFALL was accompanied by a graceful quartet of trampoline acrobats and the camp was dialled up to 11 when the dancers emerged as scarlet dancing lips for Blow Me (One Last Kiss).

All in all it had been part spectacle, part vocal masterclass and part…party. But the best of all was saved until last. A trademark of P!nk is her aerial performance. The rig used to whip the “spider cam” across the football pitch is used to propel a twirling, whirling P!nk high and low above the crowd whilst she sings So What. How she manages not to throw up, let alone belt out a song, is beyond me. But what a finale it makes.

And so it was over. When i started this blog with the line that I was a KC who fell in love with P!nk last night, this is not entirely true. I have always loved P!nk. I bought her first album and Hurts 2B Human was one of the sanity saving features of COVID lockdown for me. This is not the review of a critic, just the paean of a fan. Last night, I just fell in love with her little bit more. I cannot wait to see her again. And the flamingoes.