Pink, behind scenes of her Funhouse Australian tour

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,25586969-5012327,00.html
By Cameron Adams
June 05, 2009 12:00am
PINK is deep in her inner sanctum backstage at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena.
She is Alecia in here; still a few hours away from showtime and still in her civilian clothes, not the Bob Mackie-designed outfits only someone bold and fit can pull off (his other main client is Cher). A bar fridge is stocked with her beer of choice – VB.
She is tweeting like a mad woman, her laptop next to newspaper clippings of reviews from her Melbourne shows she’s already scoured. More than half a million tickets for her record-breaking Funhouse tour have been sold nationally. In an era where even superstars struggle to sell CDs, Pink’s entire back catalogue is trucking out of stores. Her two most recent albums, Funhouse and I’m Not Dead, have sold more than 1.2 million copies in Australia between them. All four of her albums are back in the Top 60 this week. Recession? What recession? Pink struggles to verbalise how it feels to be the drawcard of such a successful – and lengthy – international pop tour of Australia. She has now broken her own record – after 35 shows on the I’m Not Dead tour in 2007, there are now 52 on the Australian leg of the Funhouse tour – so far. “I thought the last time was a fluke, I really did,” Pink says. “I don’t get it but it’s awesome. It’s not something I’ve been able to put into words.” There is another moment in the Funhouse tour where Pink is similarly silent. It’s during Sober. Three-quarters through the hit song to be precise. Pink takes a huge pause and some heavy, audible intakes of breath. Mind you, she’s hanging upside down somewhere near the venue’s roof, being dangled by her leg by a trapeze artist. She’s already switched limbs – both feet, both arms – several times, catapulting her body in mid air, climbing the trapeze artist as a human ladder. And all the time she’s singing Sober totally live without missing a note, thanks to a microphone strapped to the side of her face. This is not a Britney Spears concert. “The reason I scream ‘Sing it’ during that song and make sure everyone can hear me breathing is so they know I’m singing,” Pink says. “A lot of people at first were saying, ‘There’s no way she can be singing. She’s lip-synching.’ That’s bulls….” On that last tour Pink party-hopped around Sydney, nursing both a constant beer and a broken heart after her marriage to motocross star Carey Hart had dissolved. Those days are over on this tour. There are regularly scheduled days off where the recently reunited couple enjoy their downtime and renewed relationship. But party time is over. “This is the most physically, emotionally and vocally demanding show I’ve ever done in my life,” Pink says.
“It’s full on. I read a review that said you don’t have to be a Pink fan to enjoy it, that it’s just pure entertainment. I f…ing love that. That’s why Bette Midler, cheesy as it sounds, is my f…ing hero. You can go to her show not knowing a single song but The Rose and have a good time. She’s like a stand-up comedian/theatre/actress/singer girl. That’s what I want. I want all of that.” After her Australian tour ends in August, Pink will finally play a headline tour in the US throughout September and October.
Her career in her homeland has been hit and miss. She topped the charts with Missundaztood, then sales dropped. Unconcerned, Pink just toured the rest of the world where people wanted her. Belatedly U + UR Hand and Who Knew were Top 20 US hits, and last year So What gave Pink her first US No.1 single. From supporting the likes of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, she will now tour the US on her own – although she’s playing more shows just in Melbourne than the entire North American region. “I’m proud to go home and play in my home town and play Madison Square Garden,” Pink says. “I’ve waited ’til I’m 30 years old to do it. It’s almost better to have to work this hard for stuff, be the underdog. Then you appreciate it more. It’s a long time coming and I credit the success in Australia to helping that happen in America. People went, ‘What the f… are we missing? There must be something there’.” Pink turns 30 on September 8 this year. She’s been granted a four-day break from the tour, after Australia and before America. “I’m going to be in a motorhome with my dirtbikes, my motorcycles, my dogs and Carey,” Pink says of her 30th plans. “We’re just going to take off, go camp, drink wine, play acoustic guitar by a fire and play with my dogs.” Pink and Hart’s reunion came around the time a UK paper ran a fabricated story where the singer supposedly outed herself as bisexual. “It was unnecessary,” Pink says. “It’s a shame that these are the kind of things that make headlines. Ever since my first record people have been claiming me ethnically, sexually and musically. It’s always this little box I’m supposed to jump into. But I’m about the truth, whatever it is, that’s not my truth, so I defended it.” Pink dismissed the bisexual story by saying it was “so 1991”, via Twitter – so 2009. “I’ve heard worse about myself,” Pink says. “I heard I was at a gay bar in Louisiana challenging women to wrestling and losing. It wasn’t the gay bar bit that bothered me but the losing, that was taking it too far. “I’ve always said I’m trisexual – I’ll try anything. Well, not anything. But my connection with gay and lesbians – the whole community – is that I identify with people who struggle. That and the fact I’m androgynous and masculine and crazy.” Pink is flattered when women find her attractive: “It’s not a bad thing. Not bad at all.” But she’s taken. By the man many of Funhouse’s most emotional break-up songs are about. One of those, I Don’t Believe You, brought her to tears as she wrote it. In the tour she regularly struggles to get through the song (which she plays on acoustic guitar) without laughing or forgetting the words. “I was joking the other day that if a psychologist was in the audience they’d say, ‘She’s laughing because it’s too painful for her to sing’.” Is she? “Nah, I don’t think it’s that deep. I think it’s just that I’m not a great guitar player.” Hart also has to hear So What document their split each night, including a chorus where he is labelled a “tool” and flipped the bird. “That’s fun,” Pink says. “He’s got a good sense of humour. It kind of stings, I’m sure. But if someone wrote an entire album about me, even if it’s a pissed-off album, I’d be flattered, so I’m sure that’s part of it. It’s funny to me. Plus Carey taught me the word ‘tool’ so it’s good to give back.” Pink performs at the Sydney Entertainment Centre tomorrow, Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and June 26, 27, 29, 30 and July 17 and 18
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http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/celebrity/Pink-26710.html
Pink's Grown Up Love
Today 15:00
Pink's husband says they had to "grow up" to save their marriage.
The singer recently reconciled with motocross star Carey Hart after they split last February and both parties only learned how to be together during the separation.
Carey said in a radio interview on Australia's 2Day FM's Kyle and Jackie O Show: "We both had a lot of growing up to do over the course of the last year. No relationship's perfect and sometimes you have to take a couple of steps backward to move forward which is what happened to us. We were apart for about a year and we started putting things back together and this is a big part of the putting back together process.
"We had to come up with a system in a way for us both to accomplish our goals. Here we are in Australia and it's our first attempt and it's going amazingly so far."
The 'So What' singer recently admitted she loves singing the songs she wrote in the aftermath of her break up with Carey, even though they are now back together.
She explained: "It's funny to sing them now because he's in the audience. So when I sing, 'He's a tool,' now that's my favourite line. I'm like, 'Hi honey, that's you!' "
Pink's track 'So What' includes the lyrics: "And guess what, I'm havin' more fun/ And now that we're done, I'm gonna show you tonight."
Several other songs on her 2008 album 'Funhouse' include lyrics about her split from Carey.