RiRi kicks off Oz tour in Perth
How to put fans offside 101: arrive 35 minutes late, don't play a bona fide hit until 11 songs deep and then perform some of your biggest songs as a medley. Oh, and share most of the singing with your backing vocalists.
Despite following these rules to a fault, Barbadian pop babe Robyn Rihanna Fenty still won over most of the 13,000-strong crowd at Perth Arena for the first Australian date of her Diamonds World Tour.
Perhaps the fans were distracted by the busy, booming sound, eye-popping costumes (highlights: hip-high white boots, booty-hugging long red skirt) and almost continuous crotch slapping, twerking and other provocative moves.
To be fair, Ri-Ri's sexually charged performance was never as salacious as Miley Cyrus and there was nothing that Michael Jackson didn't do to his netherland on stage. Speaking of Jacko, the six backing dancers recalled sister Janet's Rhythm Nation era.
And the hits, when they finally came, were mammoth. The 25-year-old's best song, Umbrella, sparked a singalong that nearly opened the arena's roof during the third of four acts, plus an encore of mega-hits Stay and Diamonds, both from latest album Unapologetic.
The final segment featured medleys, including one which melded We Found Love, the dirty S&M, towering Only Girl (In the World) and Don't Stop the Music - four songs that have combined sales of more than one million copies in Australia alone.
That's a luxury that only a pop superstar such as Rihanna can afford. She's been involved in a jaw-dropping 24 hits that have sold platinum or more in this country, a run that started only eight years ago with her debut single Pon de Replay (Bajan Creole for "play it again").
Speaking of Barbados, Rihanna seemed most at ease rolling through the five-song second act of reggae numbers better suited to her patois. This featured the first No. 1 of Tuesday night in the rowdy Rude Boy.
The singer - well, part-time singer - was joined by two backing vocalists and a muscular rock quartet featuring lead guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, formerly of Boston rockers Extreme and ex-husband of Baby Animals singer Suze DeMarchi.
This was the first time Rihanna had kicked off a tour in Perth, previous visits in 2008 (with then boyfriend Chris Brown) and 2011 finished at Burswood Dome.
"This was the perfect way to start the tour," she said during one of the brief audience interactions. "You guys are top f...ing notch."
Wish we could say the same about her. Rihanna isn't the best live singer (that's Beyonce) or best dancer (Beyonce, too), and she doesn't have the best production (Lady Gaga). She's prolific but not as hard working as Kylie, Pink or Dolly.
But Tuesday night was not the worst show Perth has seen, far from it. That honour goes to Britney Spears' disaster at the Dome in 2009. While Rihanna did not shine bright like a diamond, the show was no lump of coal.
