Perry kicks off Aussie tour with a roar
Katy Perry kicked off the year’s biggest pop touring spectacle at Perth Arena tonight with a roar.
Emerging from a pyramid in an explosion of blinding neon lights, the pop star was greeted with thunderous screams and applause from the sold out crowd, which ranged from 5-year-olds to 40-somethings.
Backed by 10 dancers, Perry jump started the visually spectacular show with the monster smash hit Roar.
Following the third track Wide Awake she finally addressed the adoring crowd.
"So I have never been to Perth," she said.
"So I thought to myself, if I am going to kick off my Australian tour, where would be the purr-fect place?
"Y'all are number one.
"It took me 20 hours to get here and to be honest, I should be asleep drooling on my pillow right now.
"And I think just because I'm so jet lagged it's going to be a little bit weird."
She then proceeded to maintain the high-energy pace as she worked through the polished 22-song set that included all her big commercial, often tongue in cheek, radio hits such as I Kissed a Girl, Firework, Teenage Dream and California Gurls.
Along with the over-the-top costumes, intricate laser show and eye catching stage props, Perry also showed she had vocal chops on a stripped back mini set featuring By the Grace of God and recent single Unconditionally.
During the acoustic set, she engaged with the crowd telling them about how much she had enjoyed her time in Perth, where she had indulged in her first meat pie in Kings Park and joked that she had confused Swan River for a lake.
"Perth we have heaps of fun already. I have bicycled all around Kings Park," she said.
"You know where you get a coffee by that lookout. I got a meat pie. I was ashamed. I think it was a day old. But it was delicious"
"We saw saw Kings Park. We saw the beautiful lake, sorry the river.
"We saw two movies - we went to Northbridge and saw a movie and saw another movie.
"I bike everywhere I go. Normally I bike to the venue."
More than 300,000 people will watch Perry during her Australian tour, which includes 23 sold out dates, and promoter Paul Dainty told The Weekend West he could have sold out six or seven Perth Arena shows such was the demand for Perry’s show.
“This would be one of the biggest tours we have ever done. Without being grandiose, over the years we have done mega tours and this is one of the biggest ever,” Mr Dainty said.
The 30-year-old Californian flew in from the US via Melbourne on Wednesday and immediately greeted her diehard fans, known as Katy Cats, by taking selfies with them at Perth Airport shortly after her private jet touched down.
As soon as she had checked into The Richardson Hotel in West Perth, Perry hopped on a bicycle and took in a cycling tour of Kings Park before hitting up some retail therapy in the CBD and taking in a movie at Cinema Paradiso in Northbridge.
“I didn’t recognise her at first but when I asked her if she needed a hand she was super nice and said she really liked the shop,” a retail assistant at Alpha 60 on King Street said.
Perry went on a mini-spending spree at Oh Henry Vintage in Northbridge where she bought a Sz1 Kids handmade vintage nautical fabric romper and a 90s Hawaiian print minidress.
After being photographed without a helmet on Wednesday, Perry visited a Northbridge bike shop, Elite Racing Cycles, on Thursday to purchase a $350 black helmet to match her low-key Adidas tracksuit.
On Thursday night, Perry told her 59.5 million Twitter followers – she is the most followed person on the social media site – that she was trying to get over her jetlag by going to see new blockbuster Interstellar.
Perry and her entourage were seen attending a screening of the new Christopher Nolan flick at Innaloo’s Event Cinemas on Thursday night.
The Prismatic World Tour plays Perth Arena tomorrow.
