Eye-popping has always been Katy Perry’s game.
Whether it was shooting canisters of whip cream from her bosom to breaking out of her gospel mold into pop flirtatiousness with hits like “I Kissed A Girl,” Perry has always maintained the ability to keep her pop repertoire eye-catching and appealing to the senses.
So when we arrived at Amalie and settled into our seats, it wasn’t surprising when we were greeted by a towering, giant eye-shaped LED screen as the stage backdrop, even as it unnervingly scanned the arena pre-show. Nor did we expect any less from the 33-year old Perry when she came out glistening red from her knee high boots to her bedazzled hoodie, flanked by a team of dancers who, of course, were wearing giant TVs for heads.
This circus-esque pop spectacle is what we have come to expect from this California Gurl, even nine years after One of the Boys debuted. Her latest album Witness, released in June, was met with mixed critical perception and has been her least commercially successful album to date (which isn’t saying much when you’ve sold over 100 million records). That’s perhaps the reason some fans opted to skip this Tampa tour stop, which on the day-of still had dozens of tickets available for resale on Stubhub for under $20 with a printed value of over $90.
Arena officials said just over 11,000 attended the show and a noticeable amount of empty seats were sprinkled in throughout Amalie (which also hosts Jingle Ball on Saturday), but regardless of what you paid to get in, Katy Perry showed she’s worth every penny.
That isn’t to say the KatyCats, Perry’s loyal fans, weren’t well represented. Her fanbase, many of whom were wearing light up cat ears, seemed to fill the arena with the same youthful and bubbly energy as their leader.
“It’s Friday Night,” Perry exclaimed, following a rowdy performance of “T.G.I.F,” one of her five No.1 hits from 2010’s Teenage Dream. “You can just dance and be a little extra.”
“A little extra” was Perry’s motif all night, whether it was swinging between a giant pair of inflatable lips mid-song or doing cartwheels and splits down her stage-turned-runway. Perry’s team of dancers were on par with Perry’s level of glam Friday night, where their outfits were every bit as lavish and varied as their lead singer. (Perry surprisingly only had six outfit changes. Yes, we counted.) Whether they were manning giant flamingo getups or chasing Perry in “alien” suits during her song “E.T.,” the dancers always found a way to make the show on stage popping.
If the glitter and LEDs weren’t your thing, the setlist Friday night kept the roughly two-hour show flowing smoothly. While she did play some lesser-known, new material from Witness, there was seldom a long stretch without one of Perry’s many No.1 hits floating in to ignite the crowd in a choired unison. In addition to the appeasing setlist, Katy’s bubbly and embracing personality was unrelenting and engaging between songs; twice bringing fans on stage to join her. Before she randomly picked a “dad” from section 101 for a game of over-sized basketball, she chose a young girl in a “sparkling blue jacket” from across the arena to come up and talk with her.
When two sisters (one four-years-old, the other seven-years-old) came running down the stairs and towards the stage, Perry was more than game in having both on stage to wish upon a shooting-star, which happened to be floating amongst a barrage of inflatable planets also mid-air in Amalie.
Friday night’s performance showed why Perry is still among the elite when it comes to touring female-pop acts, and why she is booked to bring this bedazzled circus across the globe through August. Despite her global itinerary, she made Friday night Tampa feel every bit as special. And for quite a few, it was a night they won’t soon forget.
