Live Review: Nicki Minaj - Hisense Arena

On the same night that uniformly-attired Collingwood and Geelong fans are stomping towards the MCG, a swarm of teenage girls heading towards Hisense are displaying their own version of no-nonsense attitude. Nicki Minaj fans are (unsurprisingly) an outgoing lot, and they've dressed up in pink wigs, tutus, go-go boots and all things neon in honour of tonight's star performer.

Reality TV stalwart Timomatic is charged with opening the proceedings (he's competed on both So You Think You Can Dance and Australia's Got Talent. Seriously.). As expected from that résumé, he has a decent voice and good dance skills, as well as a penchant for rather bland R&B songs. His set is all about turning it up, getting on the floor, being my baby, getting up on it and being on fire, punctuated by the odd, “Who's excited for Nicki Minaj?!”

There certainly is excitement for Nicki Minaj in the room, though, as evidenced by the ear-splitting screams of a few thousand adolescent girls. Kitted out in all things fluoro (the first costume of many), Minaj lights up the room with Roman Holiday and keeps the crowd screaming through I Am Your Leader and Beez In The Trap. There's something almost surreal about Minaj onstage thanks to her incredible proportions, baby-doll voice and flowing blonde weave. She struts around in a strangely disjointed way, a little like a wind-up toy – almost caricaturing the female pop star trope. As she works through crowd-pleasers such as Starships and Stupid Hoe, she gives off an aura of sexiness, but not desperation. There's no pole dancing or stiletto-teetering here. Now dressed in a rainbow tutu, Minaj invites three audience members onstage to rap a verse from Bottoms Up for a cash prize. One girl (from Brisbane, no less) delivers a performance so good that it has everyone over 14 assuming she's a plant. Only the poor effort from the next contestant suggests otherwise.

When she launches into Super Bass, the room really seems to lift, so it's a shock when Minaj finishes the song, says an extraordinarily brief goodnight and disappears from the stage. The house lights come up almost immediately and the fans start filing out of the venue. It seems like an abrupt end to a concert that was just reaching a delicious peak, and when we see a few roadies loading out a never-used pink prop bath, it leaves us wondering what might have been.