Billy Ocean - ICC Sydney Theatre, 23 September 2025.

They don’t make pop stars like Billy Ocean anymore. Not the kind who can slide onto a stage at 75 in a cream suit and sunshine tie, wiggle his hips like it’s still 1985, and have a 2,500-seat theatre eating out of his hand before the first chorus has landed. In an age where nostalgia tours often feel like karaoke with better lighting, Ocean’s Sydney return was something else entirely - a masterclass in charm, craftsmanship, and cheek from a man who has turned the very concept of love songs into an eternal franchise.

Once the man materialized on stage, the ICC Sydney Theatre dissolved into a collective swoon, undone by a voice that once seduced MTV and still drips like golden syrup over a Sunday pancake stack. Billy Ocean didn’t just stroll on stage; he glided in cream tailoring and a yellow tie, part Caribbean preacher, part love-schooled professor, part man who knows he has nothing left to prove. At 75, his sermon wasn’t nostalgia - it was living, breathing testimony.

For context: Ocean isn’t just another 80s hit-machine doing the legacy circuit. Born Leslie Sebastian Charles in Trinidad and raised in London, he fused calypso swagger with Motown polish and found himself catapulted into global superstardom in the mid-80s. A Grammy win in 1985 (Caribbean Queen) cemented him as Britain’s most successful Black recording artist of the decade. He outsold many of his peers, rubbing shoulders with Lionel Richie and Luther Vandross, but somehow always kept his humility intact. And while others have faded into compilation-album purgatory, Ocean’s songs never stopped looping through wedding receptions, karaoke bars, and club nights in every timezone.

Sydney got the full Ocean experience: the voice still supple, the band nine-strong and ferociously tight, the hips still swivelling with impish glee. He tiptoed, wiggled, and thrust his way across the stage with moves that might be medically inadvisable for a septuagenarian, but in his case were a badge of eternal virility.

The setlist was equal parts time machine and statement of intent. Opening with One World (2020), Ocean flexed his newer material - less about carnal obsession, more about peace and unity in an age of division. It was a clever reset: before diving into the nostalgia pit, he reminded us he’s still writing, still reaching, still relevant. Then came the hits: Love Really Hurts Without You turned the theatre into a dancefloor, complete with wedding-at-10pm energy; Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car arrived with playful ferocity, sax solo and all, as punters high-fived him like parishioners seeking blessing from their chosen messiah.

The sound mix wasn’t flawless - at times his still-golden pipes wrestled with an overzealous band - but it hardly mattered. The sincerity in The Colour of Love stretched over ten minutes of molten caramel poetry. Suddenly, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, silenced the theatre with its tender gravity, reminding us why this ballad opened the American market to him in 1985 and remains one of pop’s great declarations of vulnerability.

And then, of course, the inevitable: Caribbean Queen. The Grammy-winning juggernaut that defined his career still landed like a confetti cannon, the crowd roaring the chorus as if it had been freshly minted yesterday. Ocean, ever generous, turned his final song into a shared hymn, proving once again why his music remains both utterly of its time and completely timeless.

Billy Ocean has always been more than a hitmaker. He’s the Trinidadian kid who grew up on calypso, reggae, and soul, migrated to London, and alchemised it all into a pop-soul machine that conquered six continents. He’s the guy whose videos introduced shoulder pads and slow-motion dance moves to a global MTV audience, yet still performs with humility, warmth, and cheeky charm. In 2025, he isn’t just reliving the 80s; he’s showing us why those songs mattered in the first place - and why they still do.

Ocean left Sydney not just with applause ringing in his ears but with something rarer: a reminder that pop done right, pop sung with conviction, doesn’t age. It seduces, uplifts, and occasionally wiggles its knees for emphasis.

Billy Ocean, still the Caribbean Queen. Still sexy. Still ours.

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Words by AW.

Photo courtesy of Menard PR.