

For all the spectacle for which she's known and all those multi-platinum hits she squeezed into her set, those fans are there because she's Katy Perry and there's no one else quite like her.Īs the singer told that bashful nine-year-old, "I know you're not supposed to hug strangers. It was sweet and felt disarmingly sincere for a speech she's probably delivered every night on this entire "Witness" tour.Īnd the kind of connection she makes in those moments may be why it doesn't matter whether "Whether" sent as many singles up the pop charts as the singer may have liked. So I just want to say 'Thank you for letting me be part of your life.'" I feel like we've grown up together a little bit. But I want to say that in 2008, when I came out on the scene, some of you were youngsters. "I know I don't look that old," Perry said, "And I'm not. And when that song was over, Perry gave a heartfelt speech about the life her music has afforded her. She floated through the venue on a planet while playing acoustic guitar on the concert's emotional highlight, "Wide Awake," which was beautifully sung. 'Thank you for letting me be part of your life' Returning to "Witness," she sang "Deja Vu" on a stage filled with over-sized flowers and followed with "Tsunami," also from the new release.įor "E.T." there were dancers on stilts dressed as insects and "Bon Appetit" found Perry being seasoned with giant salt and pepper shakers. And it made me very thirsty.”Īfter calling her mom, who told a couple silly jokes about the Valley heat, she sang "I Kissed a Girl" inside a pair of giant lips. “I used to live in Scottsdale,” she announced. With the shark by her side, the singer reminisced about her childhood in the Valley. “He was born in Phoenix,” she playfully noted, as Left Shark hit the stage to join her on a very funky "California Gurls," Left Shark mouthing the words to Snoop Dogg's guest rap. Then, she introduced a very special guest who previously joined her on the field at University of Phoenix Stadium when she headlined the Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2015. "Please welcome my flamingos to the stage," she said as "Hot N Cold" became "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" and two flamingo puppets joined her.
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There were giant dice and eight female dancers with hearts on their heads for "Roulette." For "Chained to the Rhythm," she was joined by giant puppets in pin-striped suits with TV sets for heads, her dancers wearing matching TV sets on their heads. She played "I Kissed a Girl," of course, after calling her mom on a giant pink phone and recalling her parents' reaction to the song that made their daughter famous as "They fainted when they heard this song."Īnd nearly every song that followed brought some new, elaborate production. 3 – a bittersweet pop gem prophetically titled "The One That Got Away." There were a lot of songs in Perry's set that anyone who's listened to the radio these past 10 years would know, including all five songs with which she tied that Michael Jackson record but NOT the one that would have let her beat his record if it hadn't stalled at No. Then she asked, "Is anybody in here 10 years old or younger?" and responded to the cheering with "You might not know this song." So many greatest hits, so little time "This song is, like, 10 years old," she said before performing "Hot N Cold" from that same album.

Kat圜ats: The Next GenerationĪ lot of those fans were too young to have even experienced Perry's mainstream breakthrough in 2008 with the playfully provocative "I Kissed a Girl." 4 and the next two singles didn't even go Top 40.īut as much as that suggests that Perry may have lost a bit of luster since her last appearance in the Valley – "So the last time I was in Phoenix, I played a very small show," Perry joked, "called the Super Bowl" – you would have had a hard time finding evidence of that as Perry led her Kat圜ats in one spirited singalong after another in Glendale. Her latest album, "Witness," hit the streets last summer, and it clearly hasn't had that kind of impact on the culture. "Chained to the Rhythm" peaked at No.

This summer marks the seventh anniversary of Katy Perry tying Michael Jackson's record for most songs to top the Billboard Hot 100 from a single album – "Teenage Dream" in her case, "Bad" in his. View Gallery: Katy Perry performs at Gila River Arena
