Kylie at BST Hyde Park [Phoebe Fox]

FOR me, seeing Kylie was a spiritual experience. I cried when she came on stage – but then so did she.

It tells the story, though, of just how adoring her fans are, and just how much she adores them back. The 56-year-old has made 16 studio albums spanning 40 years (almost) and is only the second artist to have achieved a number one album in five consecutive decades.

So it makes sense that when she stepped out onto BST’s Great Oak stage in Hyde Park on Saturday, there would be an outpouring of joy and love for her.

She is the backdrop to her fans’ lives – whether it was as a poster on their walls as a kid (me) or a singer they fell in love with later in life, she has been around for a long time. And that kind of staying power, that loyalty to her fans, means a lot.

There were older people, die-hard Kylie fans in sequins – even children on their parents’ shoulders. They were all having the time of their lives, and so was Kylie.

“I’m on cloud nine,” she cried out towards the end of her set, and it showed. The I Should Be So Lucky singer rejects the notion she is unlucky in love. But what I saw was an enduring relationship with her fans that has clearly kept her sustained in darker times. During her song Love at First Sight, as she sang “then there was you”, it really felt like she meant it.

Kylie’s been doing this a long time, and is the consummate professional, but she brings a childlike joy, like someone getting a toy unwrapped for the first time, to her performances.

Singing to her fans doesn’t get old, even as she, and we, all do! She barely touched the songs from her last two albums, Disco and Tension, but played a greatest hits rundown alongside a sweet Kylie karaoke section where she took requests from the audience.

It says a lot about Kylie’s achievements that she could have been there for hours and still not run out of numbers to sing. But Kylie wasn’t relying on her past successes – she is an artist who endures because she is always looking ahead.

The show really came alive when she brought on Tove Lo and Bebe Rexha to perform her most recent standalone single My Oh My, while she showed genuine love for the performance of Midnight Ride with country singer Orvile Peck (a giant masked hologram vision on the screens).

“One for the fans,” said the couple standing next to me who, between them, have seen her 19 times. “She never does the whole of Better the Devil You Know or Confide In Me, usually just a few bars,” one of them added. I later bumped into them on the tube home. How did they rate that show compared to the others? “One of her best!” they both cheered.

You’ve still got it, Kylie. And I suspect you always will.