Concert review: A sensory explosion that never lets up

Katy Perry in action at Vector Arena. Photo / Peter Meecham.

The Prismatic World Tour is aptly named, because Katy Perry's two-hour performance last night was like being inside a prism, a sensory explosion of light, colour, and sound that starts huge, and never lets up.

Morphing through seven different phases, with a total of 20 songs, when Katy is on stage, every song is a hit, and every song feels like an encore.

And even when she wasn't on stage, for those brief intermissions that allow her to change outfit and unharness herself from whatever contraption she's just flown around on, there was plenty to entertain the crowd - special music videos, a performance from her backing vocalists and dance troupe, and a whole Broadway-esque segment reminiscent of the Cats! musical.

Each phase had different outfits and lighting, and different flying and twirling gizmos. The lighting show is the best New Zealand has seen in the past five years, and the production surpasses most other megastars'.

Quite aside from her excellent band and dance troupe, she has Cirque du Soleil-worthy acrobats, lasers, actual fireworks, clouds of confetti, giant blow-up emojis that float around the stadium, and so many incredible moving stage parts that it's hard to know what all theKaty-Kat kids are going to be talking about most.

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Image 1 of 8: Katy Perry in action at Vector Arena.

Will it be the swinging balloon trapeze moment which sees Katy getting up close and personal with everyone during Birthday, or the inflatable car?

Will it be the huge crystal shaped jungle gym dangling from the roof, or the gold horse which Katy rides across the stage during Dark Horse?

But apart from the many spectacular visual elements, Katy is a true entertainer - she know how to work a Kiwi crowd with a little homespun slang, and sharing a pizza with the audience.

Her vocal performance during the ballad part of the evening - By The Grace Of God, Unconditionally, The One That Got Away - proved why she got noticed in the first place, and got singalongs just as recent hits like This Is How We Do, Dark Horse, and Walking On Air.

Sure some of the more backing track-based numbers felt a bit like a hyperbolic pump class, and if highlighter day-glo dance parties aren't your thing, then this isn't going to be the concert for you. But if you want to see a show unconstrained by cost or imagination, a show which owes as much to razamatazz and sparkle as it does to music, then Katy is your lady, and she struck a home run as the last big pop act to visit our shores this year.

Katy Perry Prismatic World Tour
Where: Vector Arena, Auckland
When: Last night