REVIEW: TikTok told me Katy Perry’s tour was a disaster. Her Brisbane show proved otherwise.

Commentators had called Katy Perry’s tour “shockingly bad” and “cringe-worthy”, so I thought I’d be reviewing a pop star well past her prime. But I left hoarse, grinning, and genuinely wowed, writes Georgia Clelland.

Pop superstar Katy Perry pictured performing at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Boondall the first of two concerts in Brisbane Picture David Clark

I walked into the Brisbane Entertainment Centre bracing for a trainwreck. Social feeds had been flooded with clips from Katy Perry’s Lifetimes tour: the Baby Shark arms, the awkward knee-bounce, that rogue twerk during Part of Me. Commentators called it “shockingly bad” and “cringe-worthy”.

I figured I’d be reviewing a pop star past her prime.

But I left hoarse, grinning, and genuinely wowed.

From the moment Perry exploded onto stage, hoisted into the air in a cyborg-like metallic suit belting Artificial, the only thing that crashed was my own scepticism.

Katy Perry pictured performing at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Boondall the first of two concerts in Brisbane. Picture David Clark

The crowd? Electric. It was the widest age range I’ve seen at a concert: grandparents busting moves beside tweens in sequins, and one proud dad rocking a 13-week-old newborn in a Baby Bjorn, complete with tiny ear muffs for baby’s first concert.

The show unfolds like a dystopian fever dream, a high-gloss, AI-saturated spectacle that blends pop concert with sci-fi theatre.

Massive LED screens follow the storyline of a digital Katy avatar on a mission to save humanity and the world’s butterfly population from an all-powerful AI overlord.

In line with the show’s futuristic aesthetic, dancers storm the stage in tech-warrior gear, weaving around a glowing figure-eight platform that pulses like a neon-lit motherboard.

It’s a full-throttle sensory overload — and it works.

And yes, the infamous “cringe dance” survived. But in Brisbane, it landed exactly as intended: a self-aware, campy moment of comic relief between pyro blasts and aerial stunts. The second Katy hit that dorky shimmy, 13,500 fans screamed with joy. What the critics missed is that it’s supposed to be silly. It’s camp. It’s Katy.

Katy Perry wows the Boondall crowd in the first of two concerts in Brisbane. Picture David Clark

And what those naysayers also forgot to mention is that the rest of the choreography is seriously impressive. Perry doesn’t just dance, she soars.

She kicked off the night suspended in mid air, soaring out of a hidden stage lift, and spent much of the concert, flying, flipping, and spinning upside down above the crowd, all while singing live.

At one point, she even sings while riding a giant butterfly over the moshpit.

As someone who gets motion sickness in the back seat of an Uber, I can’t overstate how wild that is.

Between aerial stunts, there were countless costume changes — each more outrageous than the last — mostly made up of bedazzled bras, high-cut body shirts, and glittering underwear sets that screamed vintage Perry with a futuristic twist.

And she can still drop into the splits at 40, which deserves its own standing ovation.

Vocally, she was near flawless, a reminder of the powerhouse voice that made her famous.

Midway through the show, she brought it back to her roots with Thinking of You on acoustic guitar, joined by a shy 17-year-old Gold Coast fan named Flynn, who she invited onstage to play percussion.

Katy Perry even belted out the Bluey theme song. Picture David Clark

Later, she popped on Bluey ears from her visit to Brisbane’s Bluey’s World and belted out the cartoon’s theme song before dedicating All You Need Is Love to every mum in the arena. Cheesy? Absolutely... and disarmingly earnest.

Near the end, she laughed: “I’m forty now — forty and fabulous, babes!” before launching into a finale that included Roar, Daisies, and Firework, complete with confetti cannons.

So no, this isn’t the “flop era” comeback some were hoping to pounce on. It’s a wild, weird, wonderful spectacle. And if you wrote it off after a TikTok clip, do yourself a favour and catch night two.

The haters can keep their hot takes. I’ll keep the memory of Katy Perry flying overhead like a sequined superheroine, proving them wrong in real time.