Angélique Kidjo brought everyone to their feet at the Adelaide Festival Theatre last night for her 40th anniversary tour

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Angélique Kidjo first performed in Australia 1992, when Nexus Arts/Lion Arts Centre was a venue large enough to accommodate those who wanted to see her. 32 years on, the Adelaide Festival Theatre was filled to the brim last night.

Angélique Kidjo Image: Andrew Beveridge — Image: Andrew Beveridge

Western Australian group Maatakitj opened for Angélique Kidjo with a 30 minute set that included lots of songs in the Noongar language. Alongside lead singer and guitarist Clint Bracknell, are two female vocalists Kylie and Della, and a Tamil percussionist. They sang about dragonflies, a black hawk, jellyfish, and a rain song, something which would be very welcome in Adelaide right now after almost 7 weeks without rain.

After a brief interval, powerhouse Angélique Kidjo took to the stage to rapturous applause. Performing with a paired back band of percussion (David Donatien), keyboards (Thierry Vaton), drums (Gregory Louis), and bass guitar (Rody Cereyon), Angélique Kidjo’s stage presence, voice and contagious energy, combined with these talented and accomplished musicians were more than enough.

This concert, the last in the Australian tour, is a celebration of both her latest album Mother Nature and her 40+ year career. And after 40 years in the business, Angélique Kidjo shows no signs of slowing down. Having been a surprise addition to the WOMADelaide program just the night before her Adelaide Festival performance, Angélique Kidjo showed no fatigue and delivered a very energetic concert which had people dancing in the aisles of the Adelaide Festival Centre.

The audience was mesmerised and enchanted by Angélique Kidjo throughout the whole concert. Her enduring, soaring, powerful voice captivated us. Whether she be swooning across the stage, twirling around, or dancing spiritedly, it’s hard not to be impressed by the energy and voice of Angélique Kidjo.

Three songs in, Angélique Kidjo removes her head scarf and tosses it to the side revealing her signature shaven head in a sign that things are about to heat up. And they do; the next song sees some in the audience get up from their seats and start dancing in the aisles.

Angélique Kidjo tells us that this being her 40 year anniversary tour, she needs to take it back to where it came from, Africa, then nature. She speaks of women who break the rules and tells us the amusing story of betting with her classmates that the Queen of Salsa, Celia Cruz was coming to Benin to perform salsa with the wager being if Angelique was right, they would have to do her homework (because she hated homework). They upped the stakes and wagered money instead and when they went to the concert and sure enough the Queen of Salsa was indeed performing salsa, they had to pay up. This leads into a performance of a very fast, salsa-like version of “Bemba Colora” from her album Celia, which was a tribute to Celia Cruz.

The fast-paced energetic song then moves into a slower, calmer one “Sahara” before a big crescendo leads us into Talking Heads’ “Once in a lifetime”. The song has special significance for Angélique Kidjo, who in previous interviews has explained that she first heard it aged 23 in a friend’s Paris apartment having just fled Benin’s communist dictatorship where all music was banned. The first time she heard it she thought it sounded like African music.

During her performance of “Meant for Me” also from the Mother Nature album, Angélique Kidjo got the audience involved singing the refrain “all I know is you’re meant for me”. She was joking with the band that the Australian audiences might be better backup singers than them and made cheeky gestures at them when we would sing. Impressed with the audience’s response, she turns to the band and says “I told you – don’t underestimate Australians!”

She urges us to “Choose Love” amid all the hatred in the world before delivering a powerful message telling us that she doesn’t understand racism, hatred, antisemitism and xenophobia and that people are often responsible for their own misery. While she’s not giving up hope, Angélique Kidjo hasn’t yet found that the human race is civilised or intelligent. She implores us not to not lose the ability to speak to one another or we will lose one another. She welcomes onto the stage special guests, the Adelaide Children’s Choir, along with opening act Maatakitj, for a performance of Mama Africa. This moving performance filled the theatre with joy and energy. That energy continued into the encore with a mashup of three of Angélique Kidjo’s well-known songs.

After 40+ years of performing, Angélique Kidjo shows no signs of slowing down and continues to deliver passionate, energetic, moving performances. It was a delight to see her last night and we look forward to her return.