Watch INXS take ‘Need You Tonight’ to Wembley in 1991
35 years ago this month, INXS made the leap from new wave darlings to mainstream pop icons with the album Kick. Although they had been well-known in their home country of Australia and had made waves across the water with albums like The Swing and Listen Like Thieves, it was only once they made a hard turn into pop-rock that the sextet truly went global.
Kick is home to most of the band’s biggest songs, including the dancefloor-ready ‘New Sensation’, the sultry and sinister ‘Devil Inside’, and the powerful string-heavy ballad ‘Never Tear Us Apart’. But it was one song, in particular, that catapulted INXS to the very top of the mainstream: ‘Need You Tonight’.
Complete with an instantly memorable guitar hook, perfectly 1980s production, and an intoxicating lead vocal from Michael Hutchence, ‘Need You Tonight’ made INXS kings among men in the late 1980s. In fact, their embrace of electronic music and then-modern synthesizers put INXS at the cutting edge of rock music. All other acts who weren’t willing to play ball with the newest sounds of pop music were destined to get left behind, and INXS were on top of the world as music’s latest success story.
That embrace of rock stardom was clear once the band moved into arenas. Hutchence was an indefatigable presence on stage, darting back and forth like Bono on speed, trying to make sure that every last audience member was having the time of their life. It’s difficult to have that sense of energy while unravelling a song as nonchalant as ‘Need You Tonight’, but that was Hutchence’s unique power.
INXS’ legendary concert at Wembley Stadium in 1991 was the peak of their career. For one glorious night, no one could touch Hutchence or his bandmates in terms of world-conquering popularity. The resulting concert would be released as Live Baby Live later that year, but the fall would come quickly for INXS. Just around the corner was grunge, a genre that INXS had no place in. Soon, the band were seen as a relic of the past as alternative rock and Britpop stole the audience they once commanded. But for at least one night, INXS were the biggest band on the planet.
Watch INXS perform ‘Need You Tonight’ at Wembley in 1991 down below.
