With the heavenly scent of cotton candy filling the whole o2 arena, fans eagerly awaited the entrance of the sweetest girl in pop, Katy Perry. After a long DJ set, the lights faded to a bubblegum pink, cue the wails of 15,000 Perry fanatics. The show commenced with a fairytale story about Katy exploring the world of candy; a cute narrative which continued in chapters throughout the show.
Katy kicked off her concert with the immensely popular 2010 hit ‘Teenage Dream’, as she skipped across the stage in a beautiful white mini-dress embellished with red and white striped candy. The audience relished the artistic start to the show, and gasped in awe at her costumes. The set remained as a candy dream landscape of gummy bear mountains, a lollipop staircase and adorable cotton candy clouds, with Perry’s glamorous entourage of California Gurls cheekily dancing around her, in a rainbow of multi-coloured hair styles. It seemed the opening half of the show gave fans the chance to revisit her debut album, ‘One Of The Boys’ as she performed ‘Waking Up In Vegas’ and ‘Ur So Gay’.
In typical outrageous Katy style, the fairytale narrative of her journey through candy land took a surprisingly controversial turn. As stage mimers delivered her a chocolate hash-cake, which led to an epic costume change for the song ‘Peacock’, in which she flaunted a phenomenal feathery number. Perry built a connection with the audience brilliantly, often referring to her “hubby”, Russell Brand, and declaring her love for all things British, with which she delivered a sensational rendition of Adele’s, ‘Someone Like You’.
Suddenly, the sweet candy like bubble of the show was burst, with piercing green strobe lights and the harsh beats of ‘E.T’. Katy stunned the crowd as she danced provocatively in a skin-tight, black leather catsuit.
As quickly as the theme of the show had changed before, it switched back to a sultry, glittering, romantic atmosphere as Katy rose up on a pedestal to sing ‘Pearl’. This stage of the show was certainly the most emotional as she continued with the most breathtaking song of the night- ‘Not Like The Movies’. A sentimental climax which induced a wave of tears over the whole arena, as she performed sitting on a floral decorated swing in front of a montage depicting famous cartoon lovers. Following this she continued the mood with an acoustic version of ‘Thinking Of You’ and her latest single ‘The One That Got Away’.
As Katy told the audience to “dry your eyes!”, the energy picked up again with party anthem ‘Last Friday Night (TGIF)’, ending the show with the spectacular ‘Firework’ where she left the stage. As fans beckoned Katy back to the stage, she pranced back wearing the infamous cupcake crop top and daisy dukes to sing the worldwide sensation ‘California Gurls’, a truly epic finale.