LONDON-BASED IRISH MUSICIAN Rudi Douglas says he’s been on a high after getting to perform alongside Kylie Minogue earlier this week.
The Blanchardstown man spoke to The Journal about his experience – and said his “mouth hit the floor” after he was booked for the event as he’s a huge Kylie fan.
Douglas was initially hired to play covers of the Australian pop star’s hits at a party for her Netflix documentary.
He explained how he was booked to play piano but not given too many other details beforehand.
As he was sound checking, a member of the team from Netflix heard him singing. They said he should sing a few songs at the start of his set to entice people into the room.
As a video he posted on Instagram shows, later that evening Kylie ran up to his piano to join in with her 1990 hit Better the Devil You Know.
He tried to keep calm throughout the encounter, adding:
“I don’t know how but I did! It’s just years of just doing gigs and you just have to keep doing it.
“When a moment like that happens you’re actually prepared. I had the initial moment of – okay this is happening! – but I just had to go with it”.
She sang at the end of his performance of Better the Devil You Know, then asked him, “right, what are we going to do next?”.
Rudi said he then convinced the singer to perform 2001′s Love at First Sight after she was initially hesitant.
He then performed the song Say Something, from her 2020 Disco album, and said Kylie was shocked that he knew it.
“She was the biggest hype-woman.
“It felt like she was my number one fan in the room. She was telling the sound team to turn my mic up!”
He added: “We then did the song ‘Dancing’ from her album Golden, and in the middle of that she forgot a lyric so I helped her out which was quite fun!”.
His history of loving the singer is strong, as he explains how he had the chance to attend an intimate Kylie Minogue gig with only 300 others a few years ago, as he was in the top 1% of listeners on Spotify.
Rudi is glad his time with Kylie happened the way it did, “It felt like such an organic moment as well. We live in a world now, especially with social media, where everything is quite orchestrated – so for something magical to just happen – it feels really special”.