Nearly halfway through her headlining act at the first edition of the OnePlus Music festival, Katy Perry was covered in sweat. So much so that a costume change from her neon green striped jumpsuit was impossible. “My costume ripped at the back,” she told the crowd at the DY Patil Sports Stadium in Navi Mumbai on Saturday.
The American pop superstar was performing at her second concert in India after a line-up that included Indian acts like Aswekeepsearching, Amit Trivedi, Ritviz and The Local Train and British pop sensation Dua Lipa. Though the crowd came alive for the only other international act for the evening – several sang along to ‘New Rules’ – it wasn’t until Perry came on stage that the stadium almost entirely filled up. The audience, a mix of dancing mothers and toddlers, cross-handed reticent fathers with teens, hipsters donning fedoras and a whole lot of below 25-year-olds, had by now swelled to a few thousand.
In spite of melting on stage, swallowing a couple of flies that made her “one with the crowd”, Perry certainly knew how to start a party. Beginning with the ever popular, ‘Chained to the Rhythm’, her performance featured tame stage props – a giant futuristic bust of a woman and a mammoth hand spinning a planet with rings – but it was the visuals that caught everyone’s attention. Two massive LCD screens flanking the stage, which also featured LCD panels, switched from dancing flamingos (‘California Girls’) to Pac-Man like pixels (‘Part of Me’) and lit-up lyrics (‘Swish Swish’).
Constantly engaging with the audience, Perry made sure to reach down and shake hands with a little girl, jokingly taunt the city’s non-existent winter and praise those who travelled hours to come see her live. Lapping up the attention, the audience loudly sang along (something Dua Lipa couldn’t manage) to ‘I kissed a Girl’ – featuring a shout out to new best friend Bollywood actor Jacqueline Fernandez –, ‘Teenage Dream’, ‘Roar’ and ‘Firework’.
Perry kept the crowd’s spirits high, saving the best for the last. For ‘Firework’, the pop star rearranged the track to begin with an acoustic arena anthem influence. When suddenly, ‘Firework’s’ popular hook dropped, the sky filled with multiple sparkly fireworks, streamers and smoke, reminiscent of a night on Deepavali.
Renowned for her live concerts, Perry didn’t hold back for Mumbai.
Published - November 17, 2019 01:28 am IST
