Katy Perry sings a song of sensory overload at Wells Fargo
The Circus Maximus was in town Monday night for the first of Katy Perry’s two shows at a sold-out Wells Fargo Center. (Of course, it's a lot easier to fill a building when your mammoth extended stage takes up half the floor space.)
The Circus Maximus was in town Monday night for the first of Katy Perry's two shows at a sold-out Wells Fargo Center. (Of course, it's a lot easier to fill a building when your mammoth extended stage takes up half the floor space.)
From the opening number, "Roar," it was an evening drenched in spectacle. Katy's phalanx of dancers took the stage decked out like fluorescent Aztec warriors, while the singer favored a Judy Jetson dress fringed with dozens of lights.
She was just warming up.
For "Dark Horse," a highlight visually and musically, Perry dressed as a dominatrix Cleopatra, complete with whip and knee-high violet boots, as she rode upon an outsized Trojan horse armored in gold and lapus lazuli.
The climax was "Birthday," the first encore, during which she sat beneath a bouquet of balloons on a trapeze guided by wires to the farthest reaches of the arena, as confetti showered on a massive layer cake festooned with 12-foot candles.
Festive, right?
The music was somewhat less impressive. For an artist with as many number one hits (eight) as Perry has had, there's a good deal of bland in her catalogue. Not that the adoring audience, predominantly young and female, seemed to care.
Perry is about three months into her 10-month Prismatic World Tour and she seems to be pacing herself, letting her dancers and the lavish stage production do most of the work.
Even on the most elaborately choreographed numbers - "Legendary Lovers" and "Hot N Cold" - her own movements never exceeded mildly calisthenic. The hardest she worked all night was belting out "Unconditionally" to minimal accompaniment.
Perry punctuated this quieter part of the program by addressing the crowd at length. She took a delicate bite from a cheesesteak delivered to the stage in a pizza box, then fretted about its gluten content.
Extolling the putative advantages of Philadelphia, she even referenced the macabre Mutter Museum (though not by name). "You've got your history, your culture," she said, badly misreading her audience's enthusiasms, "Your crazy death museum. Love that! Love that!"
It bears noting that Perry was sporting a rainbow wig, gauzy Queen Gwenyfar gown and a super-sparkly hooded cape at the time, her most understated look of the night.
The concert was a paean to sensory overload during which performance took a back seat to presentation. But when it comes to pop pageantry, Perry has no equal.
215-854-4875 @daveondemand_tv