Katy Perry's a spectacle at the Coliseum
In this photo provided by PictureGroup, Katy Perry kicks off the North American leg of her "California Dreams Tour 2011." (June 7, 2011) Credit: AP Photo
Katy Perry isn't big on subtlety.
She fought with mimes for a brownie during "UR So Gay." She formed a chorus line with an Elvis impersonator, a slot machine and showgirls for "Waking Up in Vegas." And for her version of Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," she did The Robot with a giant purple cat.
There's so much going on in her two-hour show that she can almost be forgiven for hitting a few bum notes here and there. After all, she really is singing and not lip-synching. (She did get caught pretend-playing the recorder on her version of Jay-Z's "Big Pimpin'.")
If nothing else, Perry's show Friday night at Nassau Coliseum was a full-fledged spectacle of cotton-candy clouds and candy-cane accessories.
In her world, everything is overstuffed and candy-colored, from the filmed introductions to each part of the set to the songs themselves. "I Kissed a Girl" gets a jazzy opening and a big rock guitar solo. "Peacock" has a feather-aided dance number. And she even did acoustic versions of Rebecca Black's "Friday" and Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair."
It's a mix of humor and music that works well for her, as her four straight No. 1 smashes prove. Perry has so many hits that she sometimes tosses them off with little fanfare, as with the recent "E.T." and the great "Hot N Cold," which she oddly makes about costume changes. Then she adds dramatic acrobatics to the lesser track "Pearl" and a trip over the crowd on a stage covered in pink cotton candy.
Opener Robyn showed that upbeat doesn't have to be over-the-top with a 40-minute set of clever, touching dance music, capped by a gorgeous version of "Hang With Me."
But it's Perry's larger-than-life musical cartoons that really translated best.
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