Katy Perry

Kid Confucius seemed a particularly unlikely match for Katy Perry. Even the band admit on their MySpace to being ‘pretty intrigued by the concept’. They have a full band feel with swing element and were dressed accordingly dapper, which is probably the link, one of Katy’s band members did play a bit of sax. They didn’t have too much trouble playing to such a large crowd which is presumably far bigger than what they are accustomed to. There was the odd slip up with front man Rob Heskial, claiming the band had come ‘all the way from Sydney, I mean, Brisbane’. They played like they would in any indie club the nation over, although the stage was half set for Katy and the green astro turf and white picket fence made the band look out of place.

There was quite a wait for the woman herself. I was positioned on the balcony and the younger, spazzily enthusiastic fans were front and centre on the ground level. The crowd was a huge mix of people from the hipster girls who have short hair and wear boots with floaty dresses to the sleazy man in front of me. He was clearly there to see a woman as attractive as Katy is in person, little did he know he could’ve just looked behind him ;) He got particularly excited any time the exuberant front woman shook her breasts, made a joke about her breasts (which was far too often) or even when she just twirled around. But I’m getting ahead of the chronology. There were many false starts for the crowd as the tension was growing and everyone was at the edge of their patience, anxiously awaiting the all too familiar lyrics.

Someone is definitely trying to keep Katy’s indie edge, though whether that has ever existed is debatable, because the pre-show songs ranged from Down Boy from The Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Fucking Boyfriend by The Bird and The Bee. Also, the very fact that The Enmore is the venue she played. It is seriously nice with its art deco touches like so much of the other entertainment architecture in Sydney. So Katy bounced on stage and her dark curls followed. Her body was encased in tiny red high waisted, high cut shorts made entirely from red glitter magically suspended and holding her in place. Atop this there was a strip of bare skin before a white singlet commenced with a more structured area near her breasts, which she termed her ‘strawberries’ a running theme in her body of work. The red part was crowned by sprouts of green taffeta that enhanced her bosom.

Her dance moves ranged from the indie affected ones that are characteristically feminine with feet turned inward and knee bent to show leg at best angle, to the more boisterous where she stood defiantly atop one of the two platforms on either side of the stage that she made good use of throughout the show. She alternated between channelling 50s pin up girl and naughties naughty girl. Her stage presence was false coyness mingled with the mildly aggressive which is the tack she took to pump up the crowd. The most believable part of her show was when she was left alone on stage with her guitar and she performed the acoustic number Thinking of You.

Despite the minimal action on the stage it was the most captivating number of the evening. The band was actually more of a distraction. They wore pink suits and played their instruments with a low level of enthusiasm, maybe so as not to detract from the main attraction. Though, it might just be relative and few could keep up with the livewire that is Katy Perry on stage. The girl can sing, like a true soul sister, her voice is a lot stronger than a lot of her ‘pop’ contemporaries.

All her dancing was not to the detriment of the music, never getting too breathless. All of the hits reared their heads of course with very few of her new fans being fans of her earlier work, or even aware of it. Katy was sure to sing the praises of the ‘other’ songs on her album. She repeatedly made the point that we [Australians] were her most ‘long suffering fans’ and that we ‘deserve a great new album’ with her promising not to leave the studio until it is great. The times her chats were charming were outnumbered by the times she sounded like her quips and anecdotes were regurgitated and forced.

Her songs went out to everyone from ‘the good girls, you know, not the slutty girls’ - If You Can You Afford Me to the girls who’ve had boyfriends missing some of their parts- Mannequin. She did make a point to say ‘I love you boys too though’. There was no shortage of gimmicks to keep the crowd going. From the giant strawberries balloon/beach ball style thingies for the crowd to play with to the giant blow up kitty that rose at the start of the encore to the ‘cherry chap stick’ produced for the finale.

And that’s just the blow up stuff. Katy had a costume change into a cat woman outfit, all pink leopard print and there was a big heart at the back of stage that was a series of flashing lights, inspired by Vegas maybe? She told a little story about her brother being in Vegas for his twenty first. Nothing new in that story. Oh yeah, and she had three drag queens on stage with her for the third song Hot N Cold, how could I forget?

The encore began with a Queen cover, Somebody To Love and the night closed with the song that made her. As per concert tradition. Katy Perry has sure made an impression in Australia and this show delivered all that her lovers could want. There were all those hits, plenty of stories and even some physical contact with the crowd. In the hands of her fans, to calm everyone down, she called out, ‘I’m normal! See, I’m just like you!’ apart from the fact she can sing better than you and wear a Wonder Woman outfit better than you.

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