Katy Perry shakes off social media hate at triumphant opening Aus show

From a wardrobe emergency to an endearing Left Shark guest star, Katy Perry wins Aussie hearts at opening concert of sold-out tour.

Australia gets Katy Perry because Katy Perry gets Australia.

The pop superstar shook off the social media pile-ons of recent months to take a quintessential tall poppy potshot at herself at her opening Lifetimes concert in Sydney on Wednesday.

When complaining of jetlagged tiredness, exacerbated by her daughter Daisy Dove waking her at 5am on the morning of her first Australian gig, Perry said she had come prepared for the challenge.

“You can’t tell I’m tired because I got fresh Botox for Australia!” she declared to huge cheers from the audience.

And the scream-o-meter, the true gauge of a concert’s success, remained pushing into the red for the entirety of her two-hour neon pop dream at Qudos Bank Arena.

Katy Perry strikes a pose on stage at Qudos Bank Arena for her opening Lifetimes Tour show in Sydney. Picture: Jonathan Ng

They laughed again with her when she shared an on-stage wardrobe emergency, calling for an assistant to unzip her costume “because I’ve been eating too many Tim Tams.”

The last time Perry was down under last September, she roared at the MCG for a generally well-received AFL grand final performance worth a reported $5 million pay cheque.

Her culture stocks in Australia proved to be buoyant when she announced her Lifetimes tour, with more than 170,000 tickets to 15 concerts in five capital cities selling out instantly.

Since then she has been the subject of savage social media pile-ons for missteps, from working with controversial producer Dr Luke on her 143 record, and its lacklustre chart performance, to that Blue Origin celebrity space flight folly.

But put Perry on a stage, in front of a sold-out crowd of true believers, the day after an epically suburban stop at a western Sydney shopping mall during rehearsals, and it is abundantly apparent the oversized outrage hasn’t downsized the devotion of her fans.

Perry’s show is staged as a concert video game. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Their ranks have been bolstered by a sizeable contingent of tweens and teens who lapped up Perry’s high-flying, fluoro-lit spectacle which was humanised by a generosity of spirit.

The fans dressed to impress their idol in the costumes of her various eras, and squealed with delight when she launched into the dance breaks and light-sabre battles which were mocked online as cringey and awkward when the tour opened in Mexico in April, but make perfect sense within the context of the Lifetimes show.

After all, she’s playing a half-human, half-robot character in this video game-inspired concert, battling villainous machines on her mission to restore girl power and all the lovey-dovey stuff to counter the nasty world order.

The dancers doing a dystopian Village People impersonation. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Watch out Katy, he’s beside you! Picture: Jonathan Ng

One of the highlights of the show happened during the Choose Your Own Adventure segment - which appears to be more pre-determined than granting the sign requests held up by fans in the front rows - when she brought fans on stage to perform Thinking of You from her 2008 album One of the Boys.

The 18-year-old Left Shark superfan Elliott, who brought his two younger sisters and cousin to the show, was declared an MVP for his pop stewardship of his family, as the cute group from western Sydney joined her to play chicken egg-shakers during the song. It was a suitably heart-warming moment in a show that, by its hi-tech nature, is tightly choreographed.

The costumes were pure sci-fi pop couture. Picture: Jonathan Ng

The Lifetimes show’s intention is pure pop escapism soundtracked by a career-spanning collection of hits which have spun more than 25 billion streams and counting - albeit with a little too many of the misses from the 143 record.

The Dark Horse pop queen may not possess the vocal chops and choreography skills of Beyonce, or the edgy dark pop drama of Billie Eilish, but this seasoned entertainer knows how to put on a great pop show.

And she’s got 14 more of them to perform in Australia before this leg of her world tour wraps at the end of the month.

Originally published as Katy Perry shakes off social media hate at triumphant opening Aus show