Australian pop star Kylie Minogue was almost forced to call off the opening show of her long awaited KYLIEX2008 tour, according to reports. Despite costing over US$20 million to stage, British newspaper The Sun has reported the show suffered major technical glitches in rehearsals and nearly had to be cancelled due to a nasty throat infection suffered by the star.

A source tells the newspaper, "Considering Kylie couldn't sing on Friday and the problems with the stage on Monday night, it's a miracle the show happened at all. Mercifully all the issues got ironed out in the end and we're all hugely relieved to get that difficult opening night out of the way."

The 39-year-old, who received the Chevalier dans L'ordre des Arts et Lettres from the French government in Paris on 5 May, opened her show in the French capital with songs from her 2007 album 'X' and performed her own version of the Barry Manilow classic 'Copacabana'. (wenn)