Katy Perry, Becky G, Ferras Toyota Center October 10, 2014
There are moments in Katy Perry's Prismatic World tour that may make you utter "wow" out loud. They're few and far between, but every few songs something genuinely impressive happens.
That the rest of the show doesn't live up to these moments is just fine, because it's a seriously fun, familiar production. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking or innovative -- unless you count giant floating emoji or maybe-racist mummies as either of those -- and that's OK too, because when you think groundbreaking and/or innovative, Katy Perry probably doesn't come to mind.
She doesn't have to be. Perry is the antidote to the times when pop music gets a bit too full of itself, a reminder that sometimes people would rather have a good time than appreciate high art. She's the blockbuster of the modern pop landscape.
Which makes it all the weirder that the show, massive and fun as it was, didn't feel particularly special.
You expect things at Toyota Center to be loud, especially when one of the biggest names in pop comes to town and sells out the building twice. At that level, you expect something close to rapture.
Instead, it was a mostly polite, chill affair. Sure, there were some big singalong moments here and there -- people really dug her acoustic take of "The One That Got Away" -- and there was the standard "we're in the seats so we can't jump up and down properly but will do our best" moves standard at any arena show, but by and large it felt like the crowd never really exploded the way one might expect.
You can't put any of the blame on that on Perry. Other than once when things got a bit too chatty as she discussed gardening, she gave the crowd all manner of things to be entertained by. There was a giant screen, dancers, giant floating emoji, multiple costume changes, a rip off of Joey the war horse, an aerial sequence like something straight out of Cirque du Soleil, a gigantic lighting rig, and so on and so forth.
It really did feel like Perry and company were doing their best to make sure the crowd got what they paid for, and yet the crowd never really gave back in the way you might expect.
A hypothesis: Katy Perry is the blank of the current generation of pop stars, a diva with no gimmick.
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