Photos by West Smith
I walked into Climate Pledge Arena on Monday night with extremely low expectations. I’ve never been a Katy Perry fan—songs like “I Kissed a Girl” and “Ur So Gay” rubbed me the wrong way even as a 12-year-old girl. Between her Christian fundamentalist beginnings, out-of-touch depictions of queerness, online jabs at other pop stars (which appear to be scrubbed from the internet), and public support of conservative mayoral candidate Rick Caruso, she seemed inauthentic. In Archie Comics terms, I always considered myself to be a Betty, and Katy Perry, with her black baby bangs and I’m-better-than-you attitude, is most certainly a Veronica.
Despite all of this, I’ll admit, last night’s concert moved me. Here are four things I learned from my night at the Lifetimes tour.
Perry’s Fans Love Her, and She Loves Them Back
While I was aware that Katy Perry has an army of fans (aka Katy Cats), I assumed they had grown up with her, that they bopped along to “California Gurls” as pre-teens and are now returning to her career retrospective tour to scratch that nostalgic itch. I was wrong. At least 50 percent of the audience was under the age of 16. I saw young girls enter the arena in droves, wearing tutus, shark costumes, whipped-cream bras, and blue wigs, and holding signs that said things like “It’s my birthday today! Hear me roar!” A woman in the elevator mentioned that it was her 7-year-old daughter’s first concert. In the bathroom line, I overheard two tween girls with fresh blue highlights talking about how their hearts were racing in anticipation of seeing Perry. It was all so sweet and wholesome! I began to feel ashamed that I approached this concert with the same stuck-up, Veronica-esque attitude that made me dislike Katy Perry in the first place.
When Perry rose up from beneath the stage to start the show, the crowd roared (heh) with excitement. This was by far the loudest concert I’ve ever attended, and I’ve seen My Bloody Valentine. Perry prioritized crowd work throughout her set—she grabbed a fan’s phone and recorded herself through an entire song, then snapped a selfie before returning it. She picked several fans out of the audience and brought them onstage. She hugged each one, admiring their outfits, and asking them, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” before inviting them to perform “The One That Got Away” with her. Then, in Willy Wonka fashion, she tore a piece from her cotton-candy-spun boots and handed it to an 8-year-old fan. “It’s real cotton candy,” she said. “Go ahead, try some.”
She’s a Walking Contradiction
Throughout the night, Perry thanked her fans for showing her “what’s real.” She noted that while the internet is full of reports about her plummeting career, she sees fans packed to the very top of the arena. However, despite her assertions that the internet is a cesspool of misinformation and deception, a carousel of AI slop played on a giant screen behind her. During “Woman’s World,” her latest, controversial (and critically panned) single, AI-generated women’s magazine covers morphed into each other with noticeably uncanny qualities—nonsense words, blacked-out eyes, and warped limbs. There were clear nods to the absurdity of modern technology and the ridiculousness of her public image, with several references to her life being a “video game,” yet she perpetuated the falseness of her image more than she critiqued it. As she closed the show with “Firework,” I considered how that song appeals to both suburban families on Independence Day and queer people looking for inspiration to come out. I cannot decide if this merging of patriotism and queerness is harmful or advantageous.
Her Music Sounds Better in Retrospect
At this career-spanning Lifetimes tour, which was structured similarly to Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, I learned that Perry’s radio hits from my tween and teen years sounded better than ever, and I got the sense that the crowd agreed. Perry opened with hyper-pop-inspired songs from her latest release, 143, but the energy didn’t fully pick up until she moved on to classics like “California Gurls,” “Teenage Dream,” “Hot N Cold,” “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.),” and “I Kissed a Girl.” Looking around, you’d have thought it was 2010 with all the young girls screaming along to these 15-year-old-plus songs.
I was also unexpectedly moved by her partially acoustic rendition of “Pearl,” a deep cut on Teenage Dream. While lyrically straightforward, the song taps into a more genuine, resonant type of feminism that anthems like “Woman’s World” lack. “She could be a Statue of Liberty / She could be a Joan of Arc / But he’s scared of the light that’s inside of her / So he keeps her in the dark,” she coos, before belting out the chorus: “Oh, she used to be a pearl / Yeah, she used to rule the world / Can’t believe she’s become a shell of herself / ‘Cause she used to be a pearl.” I couldn’t help but shed a tear.
She “Manifested” Her Dream of Going to Space
Before winning me over with an emotional performance of “Pearl,” she had lost me with a megachurch-style sermon about her space voyage. She had long dreamed of going to space, she said, and despite her dreams being dismissed, she feels that she ultimately “manifested” her trip on Blue Origin. “Part of me did it so that I could let go of any last bit of fear that I had, because I knew that was when my life would begin again,” she said, tearing up. “And to any other girl that has a dream, you go and do it!” This drew attention to a major discrepancy in her brand regarding female empowerment—she preaches and sings about overcoming adversity (see: “Roar” and “Rise”), but the things she has overcome in her life are deeply unrelatable.
At one point, she told the audience how she had dropped her 5-year-old daughter off at summer camp that morning, adding, “her father [Orlando Bloom] and I were sobbing.” For a moment, I felt sad for her, but then I thought about what happened after the emotional scene—she likely hopped onto her private jet and continued her tour. Her wealth and overall privilege make these experiences completely optional. For the majority of her fans, whether they be tween girls or members of the queer community, moments of fear are not optional, and she rarely, if ever, acknowledges that.
While she doesn’t owe the public details about her marriage to accused abuser Russell Brand, her identity as a bisexual woman, or her current divorce, I can’t help but think being open about her true struggles (with less AI-airbrushing) would add a layer of authenticity to her image. But then again, the authenticity we expect from female pop stars is far beyond that of men in the same field. Is it my cynicism that keeps me from connecting to her music, or is it Katy Perry’s inauthenticity? Is she the Veronica, or am I?
Bonus Katyisms:
“I’m a Scorpio, bitch!”
“Is the internet real, or is this what’s real?”
“I dedicate [‘I Kissed A Girl’] to the community—the ones who raised me, the ones that called me out, and the ones that educated me, and for all the little girls in between like myself.”
“Love is love! It’s not a gender, it’s a frequency, so tap into it, baby!”
“What’s up, Amazon family?”
