Member Review: Kate Perry

BPD subscriber 007x2 checks in:

There’s something very 1960s about Kate Perry.

She’s a bona fide manufactured pop phenomenon, sort of a cartoon, commercial entity of pure pop entertainment. One listen to her conveyor-belt pop, one glance at her candy-coloured glamour and that not too subtle sexuality and you know that she’s been created, like the Bride of Frankenstein, to fill a void in pop-culture’s fickle marketplace.

And Perry does a pretty good job of giving pop music a little fantasy of being young forever.

Like Lady Gaga, Perry is known more for her outrageous costumes and theatrics than her music and when she arrives on this cupcake mountain singing Teenage Dream, she’s wearing a proper ’60s mini dress, only with swirling discs on her ta-tas. Fun. Austin Powers funny, and even though Perry sounds sharp, the band sounds wet, but at least I am amused.

Perry’s music wears thin quickly but our little star’s determination to show the fans a good time goes into overdrive. Hummingbird Heartbeat, Wake Up In Vegas are generally forgettable tunes that need visual distractions.
  
Unfortunately, a dozen dancers and singers in fluorescent wigs and Nurse Betty skirts, or hauling a 17-year-old male fan up on stage shirtless, doesn’t quite cut it without a framing storyline.

Things improve on U R So Gay — with Perry eating a brownie, and her gender-bending anthem I Kissed a Girl. Oh, who hasn’t?

And so it went for much of the night.

Surprisingly mediocre music and a flat sound off the board offset by an elaborate but utterly overdone video-theatre-circus show that showed its true colours during Circle The Drain when Perry walked the brightly-coloured set wearing a Catwoman outfit, just like Lee Meriweather did on the Batman TV series.

I thought I’d like this a whole lot more, but it’s only halfway through, and I'm look at the exits.

By the time she finally got around to the best set pieces - a mocking cover of Rebecca Black's Friday, her hit Hot N Cold, Last Friday Night and a decent cover of Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance With Somebody, the damage was done. The plan had been to meet with her backstage after the show. It no longer mattered.

She's so much better on video, I think next time Kate Perry does a live show, I'll wait for the video rental.

Ouch!! Thanks for tellin' it like it was for you, 007x2. We'll try to brighten your day by adding an extra year's BPD membership at no charge.

Here's wishing you better luck next time.