Live Review: Vengaboys, Tina Cousins, Crystal Waters, Sonique

Naughty sailor boys, tutus and all manner of glittered/sequinned outfits greet us amidst families enjoying Luna Park's late opening hours tonight. The theme tonight: trashy Europop. We're all here to relive the '90s, but the crowd isn't as millennial as we expected - there are a few over-35s partying tonight and singing along to Sonique and her megahit, Sky, drinks in the air. The crowd are just warming up during her set, and while she's active in her stage presence, it feels a little awkward with just one person singing while accompanied by a DJ. Thankfully a pair of dancers join Sonique for closer, It Feels So Good, and we feel like we're back in a gay club in the '90s, glow sticks aplenty. 

In between sets, the DJ drops dance floor fillers like KC & The Sunshine Band's Give It Up, Robin S's Show Me Love, Aqua's My Oh My and Mousse T's Horny, and we're all singing and dancing along. 

Crystal Waters has higher production value than the other supports, bringing two uber-trendy male dancers/hypemen, clad in all black, shades and flashy sneakers (they return later with their shirts off and wearing black leather straps, their body-rolling piqueing the attention of the huge queer contingent tonight). For these supports, it's all about playing their handful of blockbuster hits and for Waters it's Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless) and Destination Calabria.

Tina Cousins arrives in a sparkly black skater "frock", performing Kings Of Leon's Sex On Fire, for some reason, and her own Pray. She brings out sexy nun dancers (habit 'n' all) and we can't fight the feeling that all of tonight's supports feel chore-like and incredibly contrived. Most of the crowd seem to dig it though - we see a pink-haired, tutu-wearing drag queen blow air kisses to friends, others dirty dancing. 

With a tinny Eurobeat version of Advance Australia Fair (cute) prefacing their arrival, Vengaboys arrive to insane cheers. Their outfits are really something - a literal kaleidoscope of metallics, checkered jester-like patterns, capes and headgear, like campy space rangers. A truncated Boom Boom Boom Boom takes us into Black Eyed Peas' I Gotta Feeling and we realise their singing is actually super average. The nostalgic euphoria we expected kinda withers away into the epiphany that we're watching Hi-5 for drunk adults. Maybe it's the childish dance moves, or the over the top costumes, or maybe we're just fuckin' old.

The quartet "Whoop whoop! Whoop whoop!" and "Up! And down! Up! And down!" their way through the entirety of We Like To Party as if they're entertaining five-year-olds and even though the song has childish lyrics, the crowd are frothing to sing along. The Cowboy urges the crowd to "put their hands on your chests for the true queen of dance and her national anthem", and they tear into Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out Of My Head. We wonder how often they'll be padding out their set with covers, and they do often, scattered between hits like Uncle John From Jamaica, Kiss (When The Sun Don't Shine) and We're Going To Ibiza. We feel that the energy has dropped somewhat in the sold-out crowd - they seemed to be singing along louder to the DJ's dancefloor hits. A male volunteer is brought up, lap-danced and stroked up while the group sing Prince's Kiss around him. He's loving the attention. Huge rainbow beach balls are thrown into the crowd and we're told, "I want you to play with our balls, it turns us on." Are we at a children's show or an odd burlesque? The crowd lap up Captain Kim Sasabone's little thank you to the crowd, sitting on the edge of the stage to deliver a special note of appreciation for sticking around for nearly 20 years. 

It's all a very strange experience - despite there being an influx of heritage tours recently, maybe it's actually a tricky thing to perfect. The supports didn't exactly hype us up for Vengaboys, and the headline act disappointed. Either way, if you're heading down to relive your glory days, you may need a solid pre-drink session to enjoy it in its full capacity - maybe a few tequila shots were what we were missing.