Katy Perry. She's the one who told the world that she kissed a girl, and liked it. She's the one who taught us how to take on the 'feelings' of a lost and sad plastic bag, because plastic bags have feelings too? She's the one who still feels like she's living a 'Teenage Dream', even though she's 26 years old.
I turned up to her show with knowledge of her hits and outrageous dress-sense, but not much else. I got a bit wide-eyed during the interval prior to her set, seeing little tween girls walking alongside their mothers with home-made posters in hand, proudly sporting t-shirt merchandise depicting a clothes-less Katy sprawled across a fairy-floss cloud. I had also heard about the 'fairy-floss-smell-effect-machine' prior to my arrival and felt ready to compare her stage-show to the likes of Pink and Lady Gaga (not that I've seen either of them live). I knew it was going to be visually entertaining, but I wasn't too sure about how her voice would stand up live...
So, what made up the trail of Katy Perry's Californian Dream? Everything a Californian Gurl could ever want: Creamy Cupcakes. Rainbow Colours. Pretty Outfits. Sparkle Confetti. Clumsy Slip-Ups. Pussy Cats. Clouds of Fairy Floss. A cute Boy and...a Gospel Piano? I (and a few thousand other fans) paid to follow, look, listen, sing-along...and smell the fairy floss.
How did she lay out her dream? Well, it was, quite literally, “cheeky” – a comical fairytale parody full of not-so-subtle innuendo (that verged upon grotesque at some points, depending on your taste), some drug references (think Master Chef gone wrong), some blatant stereotyping (so that everyone felt included!), lots of kisses (for the 'lucky' few?) and ditzy stunts (because she is an absolute goofball!) – all in the name of fun!
Katy opened with 'Teenage Dream', which was surprising. I had expected her to leave that one for the end. Video-clippings depicted the 'fairytale' story of Katy and her Kitty travelling along the trail of a Californian Dream. The narrative and aesthetics caused me to recollect memories of Frankenstein and my favourite Tim Burton films, like The Nightmare Before Christmas and–most notably–Sweeny Todd, since Katy was initially introduced as working for a nasty butcher in a drab place where colour was a myth (all before she visits a cupcake shop, inhabited by a rather good-looking cupcake man, has a dream and eventually wakes up realising it was just that – a Californian 'dream').
Well, that spoilt the basic 'dream' storyline for you but there was a lot more to the show than that! Katy changed her costume every couple of songs. Her costumes were so vibrant, colourful and unusual but all perfectly appropriate! Many of them, and all the dream-segment video-clippings, reflected the imagery of all sorts of fairy-tale stories, apart from Tim Burton's, like The Wizard of Oz. She, herself, reminded me very much of Betty Boop, with a dash of Mary Poppins on top.
Certain video-clipped scenes corresponded to particular costumes and songs. In one segment, some 'mimes' appeared onstage after we saw her meet them in a video-clipping. They gave her a 'druggie' brownie and she consequently sung 'Peacock' and 'I kissed and girl', then got carried off stage complaining that she felt sick. Logical, though "not so subtle…Masterchef". :P
She had so much energy and quirkiness about her and spent a lot of time chatting to us between songs in a constantly cute and entertaining manner. She had people up on stage, was giving out kisses to crowd-members 'for free', talked about overdoing Vegemite, her favourite Aussie tv-shows like Kath & Kim, Summer Heights High, Angry Boys, and how much she just loved Sydney and felt so lucky to have us as fans (you could compare her to a gushing Marilyn Monroe, but it all sounded pretty sincere!).
I went feeling pretty sure that I'd be feeling bored for half the concert (aka. during the songs I didn't know). But, in contrast to my assumptions, her voice was the element that impressed me the most and I actually loved most of the songs I'd never heard before. Her voice sounded just as good as it should have (according to her recordings), if not much better! I had previously thought that 'You're so Gay' was a fairly superficial tune but it really showed off the power of her voice and her gospel background, especially because it included a lot of scatting. My favourite song was 'Not Like The Movies', though I'd never heard it before – it reminded me of something from a musical, like Wicked. I also came to love 'Last Friday Night - TGIF'. But, the best part was 'Name that Tune', where she did her own versions of four popular songs: 'Only Girl in The World', some rap shit, 'Friday' and 'Whip My Hair' – I was so impressed!!!
Her hits were fantastic, especially those to which she made live changes, like 'Kissed a Girl' which started out real slow and jazzy. I do feel like she could have made a little more of E.T visually, but the fun and colour of the show overall made up for that! She did a cover of 'Dance with Somebody' and got the audience up on stage so often that I mostly forgot about the E.T. staging letdown. She ended the show with her own favourite song, 'Firework' (complete with real Fireworks) but came back for an encore with 'California Gurls', with pink confetti flying everywhere. At this point, the fairy floss smell had been masked by the smell of blown out birthday candles and I hadn't touched my seat for at least 30 minutes...
Katy's Californian Dream was vibrant, energetic and crazy-fun! A self-professed kook, she explained that “with me, you can never tell what you're going to get – when it's good, it's good but usually...it's bad and I just totally embarrass myself! That's ok though – I'm hot. Hot girls can get away with anything!”. Well, that certainly assured me that there is a space and place for kooky people in this world – on a stage, at the least! :P I'm not too sure about the idea of considering yourself to be “hot” but the rest of her words, alongside the show, served as a useful reminder that everyone is entitled to be whoever they want to be, with confidence. I think she managed to send out a great message, especially to the younger crowd-members – accept yourself (and your possibly crazy behaviour) and just be who you want to be!
I went home feeling so excited by all the costumes, the colour and the quality of her voice that I just wanted to jump up and down and never sleep again! Katy's concert was a Dream! :)
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