It’s telling that Kylie Minogue’s nickname is the “Princess of Pop.” Her remarkable run on the global charts (if not here in the United States, quite) elevates her into rarefied air, but she lacks the untouchable imperiousness of queens like Madonna, Aretha Franklin, and Donna Summer. She’s more relatable than that, even as she is very clearly not like you or me. So when she took the TD Garden stage on Wednesday, she served not as a monarch holding court, but as an avatar of aspiration and possibility for her audience.
That came out in the tone of her songs, which were universally about grabbing onto life in one way or another. Jealousy, wallowing, and revenge are all staples of dance and club music — with plenty of all-time greats digging into those topics — and Minogue presented none of them. Instead, all of her songs were above sex, love, dancing, and embracing the world with an open heart. “Hold on to Now” was the most explicit statement of her perspective, with its seize-the-day, live-in-the-moment message, but it ran through the entire setlist, with Minogue putting exclusively positive energy into the world for two hours.
And since it was only the second time the singer had ever played Boston — the first being all the way back in 2011 — that energy overspilled pent-up emotions on both sides. After rising out of the stage on a swing surrounded by lasers forming a diamond to “Lights Camera Action,” she dropped out of the boom-throb of “In Your Eyes” for a line or two, affectionately telling the crowd “You’re so loud, I can’t even hear myself.” Later on, a “Kylie! Kylie!” chant spontaneously arose from the audience, and her band enthusiastically jumped in to support it with a beat.
The result was an arena-scaled dance club that everyone could lose themselves in, including Minogue. Most of the songs were big, pulsing disco, from the pivoting whoosh of “Get Outta My Way” and the warm, reassuring flicker of “All the Lovers” to the throb and Nine Inch Nails drive of “Padam Padam” and the itchy “Where Does the DJ Go?,” where the bass rushed just ahead of the beat like an excited heart. A high-velocity “On a Night Like This” moved like a sportscar shooting down a dark, neon-accented street, while the acoustic guitar at the heart of “Dancing” gave it the feel of a sun shower.
Minogue’s one moment of high drama came with a marvelous “Confide in Me,” done in Bond-theme style with fog, film-noir visuals, and red stage lights. Even then, it carried the same theme as songs like “Magic,” the Giorgio Moroder electro-disco of “Good as Gone,” and ’80s aerobics rock of “Things We Do for Love,” all about the heady, body-separated delirium of falling for someone and the joy in living in a world where such a feeling is possible.
Opener Romy’s set contrasted substantially from her day job as frontwoman for the xx, with a slamming club pulse harder and more effervescent than that band’s insinuating low simmer, but no less heartfelt.
KYLIE MINOGUE
With Romy. At TD Garden, Wednesday.
Marc Hirsh can be reached at officialmarc@gmail.com or on Bluesky @spacecitymarc.bsky.social