Ke$ha Verizon Wireless Theater April 29, 2011
See more wild 'n' crazy pics of Ke$ha (and her fans) in our slideshow.
Before Ke$ha even hit the stage for her sold-out show Friday night at Verizon Wireless Theater, we saw limos full of prom-ready teens pulling up to the venue, mounds of glitter were embedded into the cracks in the pavement surrounding the building, and the image of an empty glitter container and three cigarette butts will be ingrained in our brains for all time. Or at least the next few weeks.
There were Ke$ha spirit hoods on sale at the merch table, those animal-head fashion accessories we saw all over SXSW in March. One shirt from opener Beardo had the word "school" crossed out like so many '80s drug ads.
Beware the textbook like that ugly boy who smells in biology class.
Perhaps the best thing about Ke$ha is the confusion and anger she creates in the hearts of people who claim to know better. There were terse blogs going up last week leading up to the show from hand-wringing, self-appointed harbingers of decency and cool (since when did they go hand in hand?), decrying her lack of depth, and saying she was what is wrong with music today.
Now, after last year's Ke$ha show at House of Blues, we unloaded on her in our review, without getting the joke, saying "With some extra grime and maybe a better producer, Ke$ha could be lethal one day. Not in the overdose or car-crash way either. If she stopped Autotuning everything to death and embraced a truer decadence, she may have a chance at something."
And on Friday night, she seemingly went into that very hallowed direction we had in mind, and instead unloaded on us like so many scared housewives into paper targets at the gun range. It was a much better show, and she's got a defined presence now. It may not be palatable to most, but it's working.
Let's get level here for a second though. For someone who gave up giving a shit a long time about what liking a band or an artist meant to the peanut gallery, Ke$ha is actually refreshing, because we don't have to pretend that there is anything else going on except a good time.
We can't claim to be scared for the current generation of girls germinating at shows like Ke$ha because we are years off from having monsters of our own, and to tell you all the truth, any supposed trauma they incur from a Ke$ha show will keep people like ourselves in business for years with sleazy rock and roll and synth-pop until at least 2020.
And besides all that, the kids were having fucking fun, and as someone who has been happily doused in Faygo, that's the most important thing.