Katy Perry live on The Prismatic World Tour - Photo courtesy of Bilboard
The setlist, which was ‘leaked’ online before the tour started, is loosely based around various themed acts; the first of which kicks off with the bouncy defiance of Roar. Part of Me becomes a club shaped banger in its live form with a surprising dubstep breakdown aimed to shake any early gig cobwebs from the audience and Wide Awake is given an electro makeover performed by Katy decked out in a neon LED trimmed dress. It has a retro-futuristic feel to it that will weave its way through the rest of the show.
Katy reappears for the Egyptian themed second act rising from the stage dressed as Cleopatra sat astride a mechanical horse. It’s a gloriously over-the-top, but when you are surrounded by gyrating pharaohs you wouldn’t expect anything less.
One of Katy Perry’s many charms is her understanding and celebration of the ridiculousness of pop music, and it doesn’t get any more ridiculous and fun than during ET. There is a giant Kanye West head looking down from the video backdrop, pyramids turn in to alien spacecraft, and Katy is lifted off the ground swinging from a giant floating prism as if being abducted by extra-terrestrials. What a glorious sight.
I Kissed A Girl is turned in to a glam rock stomper with jets of fire spurting from the stage, Egyptian mummies with booty implants dropping it low, and musicians flying off in to the air. You get the feeling by this point that this isn’t going to be the most understated of shows.
Another old favourite, Hot and Cold, follows and is given a sultry big band jazz makeover performed by Katy in a pink cat leotard, because, of course, we are now we are in the cat themed part of the show. Meow.
Katy flashes some J-Pop moves in International Smile, possibly as a nod to Kyary Pamyu Pamyu who she is known to be a fan of, before, what is one of the many nods to 90s dance and pop culture tonight, the song morphs in to a cover of Madonna’s Vogue featuring a bunch of feline models strutting their stuff on the catwalk.
At the start of the acoustic section that serves as a bit of a breather after what has been so far a full-on musical workout, Katy takes some time to talk to the audience and mentions that this is only the fourth show of The Prismatic World Tour. When a beer is introduced to the stage it is greeted with shouts of “down it, down it” from the audience. It is playfully sipped with a “cheers” and then handed to a lucky fan in the audience.
The One That Got Away is stripped-back with Katy strumming away on acoustic guitar adding an intimate feel to this section of the show that is performed in the middle of the room at the peak of the triangular shaped stage. You also notice that she’s got a huge set of lungs on her, and if she ever bores of this pop life, there is a rootsy, singer-songwriter album in Katy Perry somewhere.
With it being Mother’s Day over in the USA, Katy takes out her iPhone and calls her mum from the stage and it is a refreshing impromptu moment away from the staged elements of the show. It’s this realness and down-to-earth quality that sets Katy Perry apart from and above many of her twerking peers.
Dressed head to toe in that ultimate symbol of the late 1980s/early 1990s the acid house smiley, the 90s dance elements reappear and seep in to Walking On Air - which Katy does at one point, floating from one end of the stage to the other as she performs the song. This Is How We Do sounds huge and is a summer 2014 smash in the waiting - unashamedly aping 90s RnB pop, it is Global Hypercolour pop perfection. Teasing Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) she drives off in a pink inflatable cadillac and I even think there is a rapping turd on the video screen at one point - but by this point of the show my eyes and ears has been bombarded with so much music and colour that I could easily be hallucinating.
Dropping Teenage Dream and California Gurls back-to-back is pop dynamite and the arena explodes with audible delight. The euphoric disco of Birthday easily slinks in alongside and Katy pulls out one lucky birthday girl from the audience who is given a night that they will never forget.
The show ends on the feel-good Firework, and naturally, because you wouldn’t expect anything less, fireworks and confetti cannons go off as the song roars in to the night.
Katy Perry performed at Nottingham Capital FM Arena on Sunday 11 May 2014.
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