When I took my seat next to a quiet, slightly older gentleman in Hamer Hall, I had no idea that by the end of the night we’d be slow-dancing, our bodies pressed together as shards of light from a disco ball caressed our features.

This was the level of audience participation that actor, playwright and performance artist Taylor Mac demanded from the audience at The Inauguration, a concert teaser for Mac’s 24-hour-long A 24-Decade History of Popular Music.

Taylor MacTaylor Mac’s The Inauguration at the Melbourne Festival. Photo © Jim Lee

Mac, whose play Hir wowed audiences at Sydney’s Belvoir Street Theatre this year (and whose preferred gender pronoun is “judy”), was both host and performer in what judy described as a “whistle-stop tour” of the larger epic, which will be presented in four slightly-more-than-bite-sized six-hour chunks later in the Melbourne Festival.

Dressed in a sparkling rainbow frock, with a tendrilous coral pink collar, glittering high heels and a magnificant rainbow headdress (which the Festival’s AD Jonathan Holloway previewed during his welcome speech) Mac and the band (Matt Ray on piano, Bernice “Boom Boom” Brooks on drums, Viva Deconcini on guitar, Greg Glassman...