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.
