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Pop sensation Katy Perry surprises fans at Melbourne nightclub and shouts free drinks during Australian tour

Pop sensation Katy Perry surprises fans at Melbourne nightclub and shouts free drinks during Australian tour

Daily Mail​14 hours ago

Katy Perry was feeling generous over the weekend as she shouted an entire bar drinks.
The mega popstar, who is currently playing a slew of gigs across Australia as part of her Lifetimes Tour, made an appearance at Melbourne nightspot Poof Doof in the early hours of Sunday morning.
After finishing her fourth show at Rod Laver Arena on Saturday and bringing her sold out Melbourne leg to a close, the 40-year-old turned up at the Chapel Street club to share her appreciation for her LGBTQIA+ fans.
'You guys raised me,' Katy confessed to the crowd.
'I thank you and I love you. You are my chosen family,' she sweetly told the crowd.
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'And because you are my chosen family, a mother must provide for her children.'
Katy then announced that she would be shouting everyone drinks for one hour.
'So, as your mother, I would like to open the bar for one hour. The drinks are on me, baby. I love you so much. The bar is open.'
The sweet gesture comes amid rumours of 'tension' between Katy and her fiancé Orlando Bloom.
The couple, who share four-year-old Daisy Dove, have been at the centre of rife speculation during Katy's tour of Australia, and the pop star fuelled rumours even more after making a telling comment onstage.
The American singer was performing the third of her Sydney concerts on Tuesday night when she was handed a packet of Tim Tam chocolate biscuits.
She was in the middle of her performance of her 2008 heartbreak anthem I'm Still Breathing when she opened the packet and ate one of the treats.
'This song is about a breakup, and this Tim Tam saved me,' Perry told the crowd during the brief interlude.
The couple's sightings on different continents come amid a new report alleging that Katy's poorly performing album caused 'tension' in her relationship
'Thank you,' she added, before launching back into the track while kneeling down and offering the biscuits to audience members in the front row.
The comment about suffering through a 'breakup' comes after Katy was spotted looking downcast in Sydney.
The California Gurls singer - whose album 143 was hit with a wave of negative reviews - was spotted looking less-than-enthused as she stepped out at Luna Park with her daughter Daisy.
On the same day, Orlando seemed to be having a blast at the Tribeca Festival in New York City.
He posed on the red carpet with their adorable Teacup Poodle Biggie Smalls.
The couple's sightings on different continents come amid a new report alleging that Katy's poorly performing album caused 'tension' in her relationship.

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Aussie gym's controversial dress code sparks backlash among members: 'Controlling and overbearing'
Aussie gym's controversial dress code sparks backlash among members: 'Controlling and overbearing'

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timean hour ago

  • Daily Mail​

Aussie gym's controversial dress code sparks backlash among members: 'Controlling and overbearing'

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MasterChef Australia contestant reveals why she's GLAD to have been kicked off show in latest elimination
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‘We're so big we could do a gig on the moon': tribute acts on fame, money and what it takes to make it
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timean hour ago

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‘We're so big we could do a gig on the moon': tribute acts on fame, money and what it takes to make it

Pink Floyd, Queen, AC/DC and, of course, Elvis play every weekend around Australia, often to sell-out crowds. Sure, they might not be the real thing – but they're close enough. Tribute acts – the artists who make their living performing covers of well-known musicians – are not new. But in the past few years they've surged in popularity – even while Australia's live music industry has struggled – as audiences embrace nostalgia more than ever before. RSLs and regional towns might be the stomping ground for tribute acts but today the best in the business can charge more than $100 a ticket. So who are some of the biggest tribute acts in Australia, and what drives them? We meet four to find out. Bjorn Again, the world's biggest Abba tribute act, have played gigs most artists only ever dream of. They've done Glastonbury three times and graced hallowed venues such as Wembley Stadium and the Sydney Opera House. They perform 300 and 400 times a year, and have toured about 120 countries. 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But when their bands failed to take off, Stephen had the idea for an Abba cover act: he thought it would be funny and something different from other gigs on the market – and a way to meet all the girls they'd have to audition. 'I said, 'I don't really like Abba,'' Tyrell remembers. 'And he said, 'I don't either, but that's not the point.'' They couldn't have imagined they'd still be doing it more than 35 years later. Tyrell stopped playing in the band 10 years ago and now works behind the scenes, but he still loves the job because 'you just never know who will ring up wanting us for a gig'. A case in point is their most famous – or infamous – fan: Vladimir Putin, who booked the group for a private show in Moscow in 2009. The gig was booked through their UK office, so Tyrell didn't learn about it until after the fact – when he woke up to 80 missed calls from journalists. It was a different time in geopolitics then, he says. 'I don't think he had invaded anywhere [yet].' 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When O'Brien first decided to become a Dolly Parton tribute act in 2007, she took out a £10,000 loan to buy 'big prosthetic boobs', wigs, makeup, nails, costumes and custom-made corsets. It takes two hours to doll up, and every show has six costume changes, which, done hastily on stage, are 'like two pigs fighting under a blanket'. Off stage, O'Brien adheres to a strict ketogenic diet to stay as tiny as the real Parton. The commitment has paid off: O'Brien 'now gets paid extremely well for what I do' and she was recently chosen by the real Dolly Parton to be one of 15 finalists in contention to play the singer in a Broadway show about her life. O'Brien's road to Dolly began many years ago. A gifted singer, by age 12 she had begun entering country music competitions in her home state of South Australia. It wasn't that she was particularly enamoured with the genre, she just liked the attention and the chance to win easy money. 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As well as the paycheque, what keeps O'Brien coming back is the feedback she gets from audiences – such as the woman who told her she'd experienced a miscarriage, but listening to her performance of Light of a Clear Blue Morning made her feel, for the first time, that everything would be OK. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion 'When the world is so bonkers and you can stand up there for two hours … and everyone leaves feeling so good, that's the most amazing feeling,' O'Brien says. 'It's just the best job in the world.' The Dolly Show is now touring the UK. The Australian Bee Gees Show has racked up more than 10,000 gigs since it began. The group performs six shows a week in Las Vegas and has four full line-ups, allowing them to play in different parts of the world at the same time. 'We've franchised, if you like,' says Michael Clift, the man behind this very global operation. Clift and his bandmates came up with the idea to put a Bee Gees cover act together in 1996 to bring in extra money while they worked on original music. Back then, tribute acts were few and far between – and Bee Gees fans were 'fairly standoffish', unsure if Clift and co were mocking their beloved heroes. Before the internet, it was a lot harder to research the ins and outs of an act, or even see them perform. Clift would drive to record stores and secondhand shops around Melbourne to rustle together the band's back catalogue. But he was determined. A great tribute act has to capture the essence of what fans love about an artist, he says – not just the music but the 'finer details' of the group's mannerisms, outfits and speech. 'We went to huge lengths to look like the Bee Gees – prosthetic teeth, wigs, makeup, you name it,' Clift says. 'To me, it was all about getting those details right. If you're watching Kurt Russell playing Elvis, you don't want to be thinking all night [if] it's Kurt Russell you're watching. You need to be able to suspend your disbelief.' It took a lot of work and time, but 'it definitely paid off', Clift says. They convinced a Vegas casino to give them a residency and 14 years later proudly count themselves as part of what they estimate is the 5% of tribute acts who work full-time. But despite Clift's success, the most dangerous thing a tribute act can do is get comfortable, he says: 'We've been doing it for nearly 30 years. But a new [act] could pop up tomorrow that's beautifully produced and full of talented people. You don't have any rights, you're playing someone else's music … so if someone else starts doing it better, you have to let it go.' The Australian Bee Gees Show is touring the US and Australia this year There are at least seven Fleetwood Mac tribute acts in Australia but Dreams, who ticked off 76 shows last calendar year, is perhaps the busiest. Behind the operation is Wayne Daniels, a longtime musician who founded the act in 2016. An old friend, who then managed a golf club, needed a show for Sunday afternoons at the venue and asked Daniels to find something to fill the slot. He slapped together a Fleetwood Mac cover show – and enjoyed the experience so much that he decided to keep doing it. 'I knew there were quite a few other Fleetwood Mac cover bands around, but I really wanted to do it for myself because Rumours is in my blood,' he says, referring to one of the band's most successful albums. Not everyone was convinced. 'People were saying, 'A lot of people are doing [Fleetwood Mac covers shows] – are you sure you want to do that? How popular can it be?' Daniels says, down the line from Redcliffe Entertainment Centre, where his band is getting ready to play to a sold-out crowd of 400. 'And look where we are today.' Women have been key to the show's success. They love Stevie Nicks and drive ticket sales. That's why it's crucial they have a performer on stage who looks like the real deal. Daniels, who serves as the group's musical director but also steps into the role of Lindsey Buckingham, admits he looks nothing like the real Lindsey. 'But that doesn't matter – I can be the one who doesn't look like him, because I started the band,' he says. 'And in all honesty, when we're performing, all eyes are on the girls.' Dreams Show now has its own fans, the most devoted of whom have seen the show '10 to 15 times', Daniels says. 'They come again and again and again, and they bring back their shirts for us to sign'. Not Fleetwood Mac shirts – Dreams Show shirts. (The band also sell hats and, because 'we are in Australia', stubby coolers.) Despite the number of Fleetwood Mac tribute acts out there, Daniels isn't fazed by the competition. 'Good luck to them,' he says. 'Whatever keeps the music alive is a good thing.' The Dreams Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks Show is playing around Australia for the rest of the year

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