When Dua Lipa makes the long haul to Australia later this year, she’ll warm up with a special, one-off theater show.
Announced Thursday (Aug. 11), the English pop superstar will stop by Melbourne’s Palais Theatre for a date ahead of her national arena trek.
This is no ordinary gig, and Lipa is no ordinary singer.
The venue in St Kilda, south Melbourne has a capacity of 2,800, a room the Brit can fill many times over in these parts.
An Exclusive Evening With Dua Lipa – The Melbourne Theatre Show is presented by The Victorian Government, Live Nation and Always Live, the state-wide festival of live music, which kicked off earlier in the year to restart Victoria’s legendary live scene.
Roger Field, president of Live Nation Asia Pacific, describes the event as a “once-in-a-lifetime show,” while Steve Smith, CEO of Always Live, says Melbourne is the artist’s “only intimate theater appearance worldwide.”
Rising acts Sycco, Cat & Calmell and Ashwarya will open the bill.
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Presented by LN, Lipa’s tour Down Under now stretches to eight dates, starting Nov. 5 at Brisbane Entertainment Centre.
She can expect a rapturous welcome. Her second studio album, 2020’s Future Nostalgia (2020), yielded six extraordinary hit singles in Australia, including “Don’t Start Now” (seven-times platinum) and “Levitating” (four-times platinum), the No. 3 digital song on the planet last year with 1.88 billion equivalent subscription streams, according to the IFPI.
Future Nostalgia led the ARIA Albums Chart, and is certified is platinum after finishing 2020 as the market’s third highest-selling LP.
Always Live is said to be the only Australian major event dedicated to “highlighting live contemporary music from home and abroad,” and spotlighting Victoria as the key cultural destination for audiences across the region.
Other concerts on the Always Live calendar include Sampa the Great, Crowded House, Angus & Julia Stone, Boy & Bear, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Yothu Yindi and more.
