Katy Perry performs at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena on Tuesday, during her first world tour in eight years.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Before singing the minor-keyed affirmation Rise on Tuesday during the first of her two concerts at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, Katy Perry told her audience that life isn’t about falling down – what matters is how many times you get right back up. Take it from a 40-year-old pop superstar whose career is trending downward and whose long romantic relationship with actor Orlando Bloom came to an end earlier this summer.
And take it from an ambitious performer who endured a frightening episode at a concert in San Francisco two weeks ago, when the flying butterfly prop she was seated in malfunctioned in mid-air, causing a momentary scare for Perry and the fans beneath her.
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In Toronto, she was back on the bug for Roar, her triumphant 2013 single that rhymes “eye of the tiger” with “dancing through the fire.” In pop music, it’s not about riding the butterfly, it’s about harnessing easy metaphors.
For the sci-fi themed concerts of Perry’s ongoing Lifetimes Tour (her first world tour in eight years), butterflies represent heart, humanity and a video-game victory over artificial intelligence − Tron meets 2001: A Space Odyssey, with a bit of sexy, Barbarella-inspired space-age costuming.
The concert’s production featured many sci-fi-themed elements that were ‘Tron meets 2001: A Space Odyssey.’Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Perry’s concert persona, “KP143,″ is a reference to her 2024 album 143, a commercial and critical dance-pop flop. A few of the album’s songs, including the Madonna-like Woman’s World and the Daft Punk knockoff Lifetimes, were threaded through a set list that counted on past monster hits such as California Gurls, Teenage Dream and I Kissed a Girl to keep the high-energy party going.
Though the tour has endured criticism for its choreography, I found the antics of the male dancers to be more camp than cringe. Fans and media alike have mentioned an amateurish production level, but the show wasn’t cheap, with a collage of video screens, an infinity symbol catwalk and aerial acrobatics aplenty.
That said, the lame stand-in for what wanted to be the worm from Dune looked like a giant flexible hose suitable for industrial HVAC applications. The pretaped robotic voice of the narrator explaining the sci-fi-inspired story involving an evil “Mainframe” was not easy to understand. Speaking of which, if the narrative has to do with the danger of artificial intelligence, why use what appeared to be AI-produced visuals for the concert?
The tour has faced criticism for its choreography but the writer found Perry’s background dancers ‘more camp than cringe.’Chris Young/The Canadian Press
So, a few oopsies for an artist prone to them. When Perry kick-started her comeback last year with the single Woman’s World, she undercut the bubblegum feminism message by using Dr. Luke as a co-writer and co-producer on the track. In 2023, the famed song doctor and pop star Kesha settled a decade of lawsuits and countersuits stemming from her accusation (always denied by the producer) of sexual assault.
This spring, Perry earned some backlash for shamelessly promoting her concert tour during an 11-minute, all-female flight into space aboard Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket. Her apparent mission? To boldly gaffe where no woman has gaffed before.
In advance of shows in Ottawa and Montreal last week, Perry dined with former prime minister Justin Trudeau at Montreal restaurant Le Violon. Remember that Barbra Streisand once dated Pierre Trudeau. How far will the former American Idol judge go for publicity? Just watch her.
She had a cute viral moment at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena when a superfan from Alberta mentioned the city Medicine Hat after being invited on stage. “Your hats are filled with medicine?” Perry jokingly asked. “Well, you know for us Americans you are our medicine hats, we love it.”
For the designated mid-concert fan interaction in Toronto, three young people were picked from the crowd to awkwardly chat with Perry: a budding fashion designer, an aspiring performer wearing a cheeseburger shirt and a girl dressed as a traffic pylon.
The concert ended with Firework, another of Perry’s power anthems. Beats pulsed as confetti and self-help advice soared. Two hours had flown by, and so had Perry. She had risen, she had roared, she had rinsed and she had repeated.
“Baby, you’re a firework, come on, let your colours burst,” she sang. Perry meant it for her fans, sure, but probably for herself as well.
The rumour mill continues to churn for Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry. The former prime minister was spotted at the U.S. pop star’s Montreal concert July 30, days after they dined together at a Plateau eatery.
The Canadian Press
