So I am a cliché – the person who really only watches the Superbowl for the half-time shows. A few years ago I would have added the advertisements as well but years of having to watch them for class, to discuss on Monday, has sort of turned me off it (although I admit I do still read the reviews the next day). And so, I really only show up Superbowl Sunday for the half-time show – sorry football fans but unless it’s tennis, I’m pretty much indifferent to most sports.
And this year was no different, although I will say my expectations were fairly low. Full disclosure, I’m not the biggest Katy Perry fan. Don’t get me wrong, she makes some fun, cute and catchy pop music and I even have a few of her hit songs in my iTunes library. However, as a performer, she’s never wowed me. I never watched any of her live performances, award show performances, etc. and thought “OMG that was amazing…” So again, expectations were pretty low but I was willing to give her a chance and was looking forward to seeing what Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott were going to bring to the performance.
When it was all said and done, I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. It certainly didn’t rank as my favorite (that honor still goes to Prince) but it was a well-staged and fairly well performed performance. And if I had to grade it, I would give it a solid B. But like I said, it was by no means perfect so here are my pros and cons of the performance.
Pros
1. I thought she sounded very good vocally. Katy Perry, like many of the current female pop superstars, often gets criticized for her limited vocal abilities and accusations of lip-syncing. Now I don’t know if there were parts that were lip-synced last night (there were many times where the backing track was clearly heard which is to be expected) but there were definitely many times that were clearly sung live and I thought she sounded quite good. So props to her for that.
2. Lenny Kravitz was a welcome and very sexy addition but then again when is he ever not. I liked that he sang “I Kissed A Girl” and rock-ified it a bit. He and Katy performed well together. It was short but sweet.
3. I thought the song choices were wise and that all together, the performance featured a good collection of her hits. They were also paced well, starting with the fiery empowerment of Roar and ending with the uplifting Firework.
4. The visuals and staging were absolutely stunning. The gold mechanical tiger was everything, coupled with the gold balloons floating around, as well as the silver and black chess like piece for Dark Horse. I wasn’t as fond of the Teenage Dream/California Girls staging, however. Particularly, I thought the dancers in goofy shark and large beach ball costumes was a bit cheesy and hokey and yes, the shooting star for Firework totally looked like NBC’s “More You Know” symbol. However, all in all, I thought it was a really good job visually.
Cons
1. I hated her costumes, especially that god awful silver shoes she wore through every single costume change. She looked like she came off the set of The Flintstones in her first outfit, the 50’s beach look for Teenage Dream/California Girls was okay but the shoes were especially distracting there, she was basically wearing a too large, bedazzled sports jersey when Missy came out and then her final dress was okay but once again, the ugly shoes ruined it.
2. Missy Elliot. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Missy, loved every second of her performance and spent all of it wishing for her comeback to hip-hop (please Missy come back and save us from dreck like Iggy Azalea) but she essentially stole Katy’s thunder and made her seem like an afterthought in her own performance. I put this as a con because from Katy’s perspective, I don’t understand allowing another artist that much time in your performance, especially when they tear it up like Missy did.
3. Four costume changes seemed a bit excessive to me for a 13 minute performance. Not even Beyonce did this, hell Beyonce never changed at all and I didn’t think anyone had more costume changes than ‘Yonce. The costume change explained Missy’s prolonged performance, which allowed Katy to get ready for Firework but as noted above, it only took shine off Katy. It also didn’t help that as I noted above, the costumes were all so awful.
4. Finally, Katy Perry is a really, really awful dancer – as in she is almost painful to watch at times. I’ve certainly never thought she was good but it was really on display at times last night, how bad she is, specifically during the part when Missy came out. It was literally comical watching her struggle to try and keep up and emulate the dancers’ moves. Seriously, watch her performance again particularly for this moment. She literally stops and stares at points, trying to do the steps and it just doesn’t work. What was most significant about her lack of dance ability though, was it finally put perfectly into perspective exactly why I’ve never been wowed by her live performances. As a close friend perfectly explained it, Katy uses all the theatrics and visuals to distract from the fact that she is not very engaging on her own on a stage and the reason she isn’t very engaging is because she’s such a rhythm-less performer. She needs all the lights, graphics, staging, dancers, etc. because on her own she is actually quite awkward and uncoordinated. And that’s what makes artists like Rihanna, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, even Madonna more compelling performers than her.
So those were my thoughts. What were yours? And in case you missed the performance or just want to watch it again, check out the link below.
PoPnOgR@PhY 