Canal Street Online Manchester

Pride 2015 - Sunday with Atomic Kitten and Dannii Minogue

Pride 2015 - Sunday with Atomic Kitten and Dannii Minogue

The weekend rolled on and for Sunday night, the Main Stage was the place to be with an impressive line up, Canal-St Online’s Chris Park was there to catch the action.

Stooshe

The sun was starting to set and there were more than a few party casualties in the main arena, so it was a tough call to raise the energy for the evening, but Pride stalwarts Stooshe were more than capable, grabbing us by throat with 60s throwback tune Slip.

Their act is incredibly polished, successfully melding Motown girl groups with a modern twist. They worked their way through the set effortlessly, which included a great trio of covers starting with a storming version of Jess Glynne’s Hold

My Hand, followed by crowd pleaser, TLC’s Waterfalls finishing with the track everyone seems to have covered this weekend, Uptown Funk however Stooshe’s interpretation was smooth and begs to be released.

The crowd was really filling up for their performance and the girls seemed to love this, especially the amazing Courtney Rumbold who you couldn’t take your eyes off with her moves and vocals.

They ended on smash hit Black Heart and left to huge cheers. You can’t help but think when the second album comes out and they have a strong back catalogue, they are going to be a true force to be reckoned with.

Atomic Kitten

There had been a few grumblings on social media and around the Village when Natasha Hamilton had tripped into the Celebrity Big Brother house on Wednesday night. Erm…..wasn’t she supposed to be on stage on Sunday night? Atomic Kitten hastily put a message out saying Liz McClarnon and Kerry Katona would still be appearing.

They certainly did that and managed to pull probably the biggest audience of the weekend. People were literally queuing up in the streets and jostling on doorsteps to get a view of the video screens.

At the end of the day, it’s fair to say that Hamilton was missed but also fair to say that Katona has more than enough personality to fill a stage and McClarnon can hold her own vocally so they worked their way through hits like Right Now, I Want Your Love and Eternal Flame with ease.

The audience decided to become the third member and were in fine voice, especially for the closing number, Blondie cover, The Tide is High and then they were gone.

Everyone was looking a little uneasily at each other, surely they wouldn’t not sing it, they had to sing it didn’t they? A chant of “One more song” started up and they were more than happy to oblige and the crowd were deafening as they launched into Whole Again. The only way it could have been more perfect would have been a live link up to the Diary Room.

Dannii Minogue

It was something of a coup for Manchester Pride to get a star with the stature of Dannii Minogue to perform in a car park in Manchester but they pulled it off with the help of Jeremy Joseph and GAY.

Everyone was very excited and it was only right that a singer of this calibre had a special introduction, this honour was given to Coronation Street stars Antony Cotton (Sean), Jenny McAlpine (Fizz) and Katie McGlynn (Sinead) who all had to answer a Dannii trivia question correctly or the diva was getting on the first plane back to Australia. As luck would have it, they all got it right and the set started.

It was the same set she’d performed at GAY the night before and at Sydney Mardi Gras earlier this year and was a high energy, high camp return to form. Introduced by a PVC clad nun with Madonna cone bra, Minogue came on stage looking amazing in a pink sequinned catsuit and charged her way through a medley of her hits starting with Put The Needle On It, merging into Baby Love, then Love and Kisses and straight into This Is It.

The crowd were screaming for more and Minogue looked genuinely thrilled to be up there and talked to us at length about how special she finds performing in gay clubs and how, 21 years ago it was considered taboo but she didn’t care. Everyone responded with a chant of Dannii and she allowed herself to soak in the atmosphere before launching into Love Fight with her dancers.

Then the stage was dark and there was a dance break but she wasn’t away for long and returned resplendent in black sequins to sing latest offering, Summer of Love and ending on Who Do You Love Now which the crowd went crazy for.

Jeremy Joseph came onto the stage with flowers for her which she donated to the audience and after a quick selfie Minogue left the stage.

It may have been a very short set but it was a welcome return to the stage for Minogue who has been very vocal about wanting to return to music after such a long hiatus, it appears she will have a sell-out crowd if she decides to come to Manchester.

Published: 1-Sep-2015: (3283)

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