Perry stages wide-ranging spectacle at Bradley Center
Safe to say 2017 didn't turn out like Katy Perry planned.
"Witness," her first album in four years, was critically slammed, netted just one Top 10 single and was shut out from Grammy nominations last week. That likely contributed to some curtained-off rows and pockets of empty seats all around the BMO Harris Bradley Center for her Milwaukee show Monday.
For a pop star of Perry's stature — who was playing in town for the first time in six years — that's a bit of a soft showing. Still, while Perry seemed to suffer from a bit of an identity crisis on "Witness" the album, chasing ill-suited bedroom pop trends and saddling some material with strained importance, she knows exactly who she is during "Witness" the concert: the charismatic, fun-relishing ringleader of a stunning two-hour spectacle.
Some of the thinner "Witness" material even worked well live, thanks largely to the imaginative direction of Australian concert team the Squared Division.
For "Roulette," Perry climbed an oversize pair of dice as dancers popped in and out of holes on the sides. With "Chained to the Rhythm," her pointed commentary (pointed for her, anyway) on societal obliviousness to suffering, dancers navigated oversize puppets in business suits with eyeball-adorned TV screens for heads, while Perry's allfemale dance crew, sporting similar headgear, delivered a sharp Busby Berkeley-meets-"Thriller" routine.
Perry sang at the base of a giant rose, an eyeball in the bud, as an acrobat performed a balancing act above her for "Tsunami." And she scored with "Swish Swish" by inviting a dad in the crowd — the self-named "Brad the Dad" from Wauwatosa — to take her on in a best-of-three free-throw competition with giant novelty basketballs. (Brad the Dad, by the way, won the contest, and milked the audience with geeky abandon, likely mortifying his daughter in the process.)
The rest of the show was heavy with hits, creatively rendered.
The band brought out the '70s disco in "Teenage Dream," accompanied by an offbeat, geometric-shape-inspired, stage and costume design that Devo would admire. Left Shark, the famous malfunctioning costumed dancer from Perry's 2015 Super Bowl halftime show, showed up and redeemed itself with some in-step choreography near the end of an extra funky "California Gurls."
Perry was "swallowed" midair by giant red lips for "I Kissed a Girl," and later floated around on a technicolor planet in a glittery silver Cher-style dress, white acoustic guitar in hand, to sing "Wide Awake."
For her part, Perry let the props and her personality carry the show, at one point even calling her Mom, who shared some Wisconsin-inspired jokes about cheese and polka.
But Perry reserved some soaring vocals for finale "Firework," sung from the palm of a giant hand, with fireworks erupting behind her and confetti falling over the crowd.
The year may not have been what Perry envisioned. But with this topnotch tour, it seems to be ending just exactly the way Perry, and her fans, would have wanted.
Two “Witness” tracks, “Mind Maze” and “Miss You More,” didn’t make Monday’s setlist. But two of the song’s co-writers — Corin Roddick and Megan James — were on hand to open as Purity Ring.
From Roddick jamming behind an LED dome and James’ ethereal voice and fantasy-queen demeanor to the 40 floodlights lining the stage, Purity Ring quickly established an effective aesthetic for icy synthpop tracks like “Bodyache” and “Begin Again.” But the set-up and songs grew monotonous, then mildly tedious, across 30 minutes.