Will Brodie

Sydney Morning Herald

There was no lighting, no speakers or entourage and the location was down the road from a former atomic bomb testing site. But Jessica Mauboy was at ease on her outback stage.

The pop star literally embraced her fans at the Nullarbor Plain outpost of Watson.

The Darwin-born diva has been performing free acoustic concerts across Australia as part of the Indian Pacific Outback Christmas train journey, an annual fund-raiser for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Advertisement: Story continues below Great Southern Rail uses the shows to thank the isolated communities along the route which help sustain the locomotive on its epic 4532-kilometre pilgrimage between Sydney and Perth.

The ARIA award-winning Mauboy was moved to tears by the greeting she received from the mostly indigenous gathering, many of whom had travelled hundreds of kilometres. ''It really took me back, just seeing the light in their faces,'' the 22-year-old said.

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