Natalie Imbruglia
Dua Lipa has wrapped up the Melbourne leg of her Australian tour by bringing out a pair of acclaimed names for her ongoing cover portion.
Lipa launched her live appearances for 2025 earlier this month when she touched down in Australia as part of her ongoing Radical Optimism Tour. With five nights scheduled for Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena and three at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena, the excitement for the tour spilled over ahead of time when it was noted that all eight dates on her Australian trek had sold out – resulting in over 120,000 ticket sales.
So far, each of the Australian dates have seen Lipa dedicate the eighth song of her set to a special cover of an Australian artist. On March 17, AC/DC were given the honor when she performed “Highway to Hell,” with Natalie Imbruglia’s version of “Torn” making the cut, and Kylie Minogue’s ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head” appearing in the set on March 20.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The final two Melbourne shows were taken up another notch, however, with Lipa welcoming the original artists for a special duet. On Saturday (March 22), Troye Sivan served as the guest of honor, joining Lipa to perform a version of his Grammy-nominated 2023 single “Rush.”
Trending on Billboard
“This next song in the set is different every night,” Lipa explained, noting she had allocated the slot to feature a song “by a local artist” each night. “So tonight, I thought it would be a big mistake if I didn’t play one of my favorite, favorite artists ever who’s also a friend of mine.”
“This is a song I’ve been listening to for a really long time — I mean, 2023 until now, and forever more I’ll be listening to this song,” she added. “But this is a Saturday night banger, so I think it’s going to be a fun one.” Sivan then joined in unannounced to the sound of rapturous applause from the crowd.
The following night (Sunday, March 23), Lipa wrapped up the Melbourne leg of her tour, with the eighth song again being allocated to a song by an Australian artist. This time, she was again joined by the artist in question, with Vance Joy appearing to share a rendition of his 2013 single “Riptide.”
Joy’s “Riptide” topped the Rock Airplay chart upon its release, and was also nominated for both song of the year and best video at the 2013 ARIA Awards. It hasn’t, however, ever topped the Australian charts, though ARIA’s 2024 end-of-year report included the song as one of only five local songs in the chart, with its No. 24 placing being the highest for an Australian song that year.
Notably, Lipa’s point of sharing a song by a “local artist” each night seems only to extend to the nationality of each artist. While both Joy and Minogue are from Melbourne, Sivan hails from Perth (by way of South Africa), and Imbruglia and AC/DC are noted Sydney names. It’s currently unclear which Australian acts Lipa will add to her set in Sydney, though she will launch those dates on Wednesday (March 26).
Just weeks after the Chess Piece was revealed to be Laverne Cox on the latest season of The Masked Singer, the Wednesday night (Nov. 6) episode was full of more surprises when Bluebell was unmasked.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Taking place as part of the Group B finals, the ’60s Night episode kicked off its proceedings with Wasp, Bluebell, and Goo all performing a rendition of The Beach Boys’ “Fun, Fun, Fun”, which hit No. 5 on the Hot 100 upon its 1964 release.
While Wasp went on to pay triubute to Aretha Franklin with a rendition of “Ain’t No Way”, and Goo paid homage to The Animals’ version of “The House of the Rising Sun”, it was Bluebell whose night came to an end following a performance of The Contours’ “Do You Love Me”.
Trending on Billboard
Following an ‘Inventions of the ’60s’ clue revealing an Easy-Bake Oven containing a Vegemite sandwich, the panelists realised that the masked singer must be an Australian. However, following incorrect guesses of Naomi Watts from Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg, Isla Fisher from Robin Thicke, Kylie Minogue from Rita Ora, and Rose Byrne from Ken Jeong, Bluebell’s identity was confirmed to be Natalie Imbruglia.
“You did a great job disguising her voice,” Thicke said of the Australian musician, whose singing previously inspired guesses of Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and others. “But you played the game so well. You fooled us.”
Imbruglia first rose to fame as an actress in her native country at the start of the ’90s, launching a music career with a cover of Ednaswap’s “Torn” as her debut single in 1997. The track was a global hit, selling more than four million copies globally, and topped the Billboard Radio Songs, Adult Pop Airplay, and Pop Airplay charts.
The song didn’t chart on the Hot 100 due to a lack of a physical commercial release, but did reach No. 12 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, while its corresponding album, Left of the Middle, reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200.
Since her auspicious debut, Imbruglia has released a total of six albums across her career, with 2021’s Firebird arriving as her most recent.
-
Pages