Wednesday October 12th saw the grand return of Delta Goodrem to London. Historically this was her first actual London show – prior to this she had only done a nightclub show and a private intimate invite only gig… this however was her first live show available for eager Delta fans to purchase. The show was sold out within minutes of being on sale and led to a second show being announced (and a nightclub appearance pending). There’s no denying Delta’s impact and it’s a been a long time coming.
She opened the show on current album ‘Bridge Over Troubled Dreams’ album track ‘The Power’ and immediately had the crowd energized with thrusting arm movements and bombastic vocals and throughout her (nearly) two-hour set, the energy did not dwindle. The set was a mix of popular hits like ‘Lost Without You’, album tracks from her current record. One of the more interesting aspects of Delta is how she’s very self-aware of her own back catalogue and fans are the same. Whilst most enjoy hearing the hits, I’m not sure I’m aware of an artist who unanimously with fans is so astute on B-sides and album tracks and this really highlighted during the “Bunkerdown Sessions” where people were shouting for all types of hidden gems. “Bunkerdown Sessions” – a moment she may have regretted, as this garnered loud cheers, but it was a fantastic moment because the audience were treated to some much deeper cuts – ‘You and You Alone’, ‘Heart Hypnotic’, ‘Fragile’, alongside a wonderful rendition of Whitney’s, ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ and Olivia Newton-John’s, ‘Hopelessly Devoted to You’. The latter being much more heartfelt than potentially intended due to Delta’s personal relationship with Olivia, and even playing her in a movie.
The love for Delta was certainly felt among the crowd and from the singer herself, when she sang album track ‘Dear Elton’, a reflection of her love for all things UK and Elton John, features the lyric “and maybe the crowd got tired and went home” which she repeated and you could feel the resonance in the crowd as the reality was that in a twenty year career, this was her first UK show and the crowd certainly had not gone home!!!!! I think her level of honesty is something that really captures her essence – there was a real pin drop moment when she performed the 2020 beauty ‘Paralyzed’, a track that she wrote when she lost her speech in 2019. It single handedly has one of her best middle eighths, “stop and rewind”.
Delta’s performance is energetic, cheery and enthralling. She really captures the audience’s attention and continually throughout the show she had spontaneous moments – she sang a version of the Neighbours theme as someone shouted for it and also sang a very small minute of her Christmas song ‘Only Santa Knows’ again due to audience desires. She would often grab hands and kisses to the crowd which is a far cry from the COVID-19 precautions that were put in place during her 2021 Australian Tour, and it’s quite an amazing feat for the audience to hear tracks like ‘In This Life’ and ‘Sitting on Top of the World’ sang in unison from the crowd in a country where the tracks weren’t even really made readily available. Her 2007 album, ‘Delta’ was not even released in the UK at the time, so if you wanted a copy you would need to have purchased it from eBay and had it delivered from Australia (I was one of those people). This was before the days of Spotify remember! She treated the audience to covers of Kate Bush’s ‘Running up that Hill’ and Queen’s ‘The Show Must Go On’ and her voice sounded particularly fantastic on these but perhaps it’s because these are tracks were not that used to hearing so felt fresh and brand new and having her spin vocally on them really made them seem unique to Delta… and not many people can cover Kate Bush well!
The show was jam packed with hits and she closed the show on ‘Wings’ before returning for a fantastic performance of ‘Born to Try’ and reminded us why she was worth the wait and if we need to wait twenty years for another show. We’ll be here. We won’t get tired and go home.
