Katy Perry’s Lifetimes world tour arrives in Glasgow with a lot of baggage: somewhat scathing takes from its US run, backed up with lukewarm feelings about both her recent sojourn into space, and last year’s 143, an EDM-influenced album controversially co-produced by Dr Luke. Despite this, Perry is still a much-loved star in many camps, with her own brand of kooky iconography adopted by her fans tonight – like J-Lo at the 2019 Met Gala, I also run into a woman dressed up as a burger in the venue toilets. The tour is not the disaster that some have reported, but it does suffer from Perry not allowing herself to have as much fun as her audience are having.
The show starts with a video setting up a convoluted storyline: a video game about Perry trying to save the world by rescuing stolen butterflies from AI overlords. This good v evil story would be more effective if Perry’s visuals didn’t share such an AI-style aesthetic. After a stilted start with 143 single Artificial, Perry settles into the show with 2013 single Dark Horse. Its high drama is an early highlight, with Perry shouting “I’m a Scorpio bitch!” over its deep womp-womp beats.
It’s clear that Perry is most at ease when she lets the hits speak for themselves, but too often we’re distracted by the frankly excessive visuals and staging. During the maligned single Woman’s World – which is much more fun and silly in a live setting – she’s surrounded by hunks draping themselves over scaffolding, but plays second fiddle to a blow-up statue that takes the attention away from her entrance. She’s almost constantly doing far too much: hanging off props, spinning upside down, and wearing a glove that shoots fireworks.
She loosens up for a run of California Gurls, Teenage Dream and Hot N Cold, proving she doesn’t need a theme park’s worth of apparatus and fireworks when she has an intimidating imperial phase to fall back on. This infectious attitude infuses 143 tracks Crush and Nirvana, but the momentum is cut short for another costume change, another convoluted video, some more extraneous dystopian narrative. During Part of Me and Rise she battles dancers with shields, and her projected image has an overlaid target – the defiant multimillionaire against her feeble critics – yet when she breaks away to sing alone, she displays more energy and charisma than she has had all night. She’s at her most natural playing The One That Got Away in a cute Josie and the Pussycats-esque setup with her keyboardist and guitarist, chatting in a chaotic but charming way to fans and getting a few up on stage.
This quiet(er) moment aside, watching the show is akin to being an overstimulated, sugar-loaded child. It’s not surprising that a large percentage of the audience are young children, brought along by millennial parents who grew up with Perry’s music. Her candy-coloured nudge-wink aesthetic does adapt well to children’s entertainment – if only she had the confidence in the strength of her best material to allow it to speak for itself, then Lifetimes could be better enjoyed by people of all ages and attention spans.
• Katy Perry plays AO Arena, Manchester, on 8 October; Utilita Arena, Sheffield, on 10 October; Utilita Arena, Birmingham, on 11 October; and the O2, London, on 13 and 14 October
