And so I showed up at PHX Arena on Saturday night, eagerly anticipating a hot mess.
I got it — but not in the way I was expecting.
Because the Lifetimes tour is actually … OK.
The show is structured like a video game. The plot seems to place Perry in a dystopian future where the world sucks because all the butterflies are gone or something. Her mission — free the butterflies — takes her through a series of levels, both in the graphics on the backdrop and in the live show.
(Spoiler alert: She saves the butterflies.)
Let’s start with the bad. The graphics of the “video game” are reminiscent of cheesy early 2000s cyberpunk media. The internet = evil trope was already passé well over a decade ago, but Perry mashes up “Blade Runner”-esque landscapes with images of facial recognition software like it’s a novel concept. And for a concept based around the dangers of technology, Perry uses an awful lot of AI art.
Most of the videos on social media making fun of the Lifetimes tour focus on Perry’s dance skills, or lack thereof, and it’s true: She’s not a good dancer. A lot of her moves make her look like an awkward newbie in an aerobics class. At one point, she just runs around the infinity-symbol-shaped stage like she’s working out; at others, she moves her arms and legs like she’s a marionette.
The lightsaber battle. Oh, Lord, the lightsaber battle. Perry performed her 2011 hit “E.T.” amid a set piece that depicted her fighting an army of aliens — and inexplicably, a giant HVAC hose — with a red, double-ended lightsaber. It was clunky, awkward and so, so cringe. Somewhere, Darth Maul is rolling over in his space grave.
In the middle of the show, a QR code appeared on the screen. Scan it, and it was supposed to take us to a website where we could vote for a song for Perry to sing. Except it didn’t work. So she sang several lines of “Harleys in Hawaii” and moved on.
Lastly, Perry isn’t hitting high notes like she used to. She backed off during songs such as “Dark Horse” and “California Gurls.” I’m not sure if that was a one-off last night or a common occurrence on this tour, but it was noticeable at several points during the show.
OK, enough negativity. Here’s what was good about the Lifetimes tour.
Perry has a lot of hits, and she played them all during the show. Fans come to hear the songs they love, and it’s always a bummer when an artist leaves their most popular songs off a setlist (I’m looking at you, Bob Dylan). But over the course of two hours, Perry hit every banger fans were looking for, including “I Kissed a Girl,” “Teenage Dream,” “Part of Me,” “The One That Got Away,” “Roar” and “Firework.”
Though Perry’s dance skills are subpar, her dancers’ are not, and the troupe of hunky guys accompanying her added a bunch of visual interest to the show. Whether they were using weird alien plants as a stripper pole, performing Cirque du Soleil moves underneath a giant metal globe or dancing behind Perry in a variety of colorful outfits, the dancers kept it tight even when the singer did not. And as a bonus, one of the dancers, Eric Klich, is from Phoenix.
Perry mentioned Slick City, an indoor slide park with four Valley locations, saying that she was there with her daughter earlier in the day, and she almost didn’t make the concert because it was so much fun. We love a local shoutout. (If you saw her there, hit us up.)
The fans and their outfits added to the fun of the evening. Call it the Eras tour effect, but we saw people of all ages in costumes inspired by Perry’s music videos, including the cupcake bras of “California Gurls” and the jungle princess look from “Roar.” We even saw a couple of Blue Origin Katy Perrys in jumpsuits.
And lastly, whatever you think of Katy Perry, she appears to be an artist with a sincere love for her fans. She stopped several times to touch fans’ hands or bend down to be in a FaceTime video. And in the middle of the show, she called up six attendees from various parts of the arena. Two were young girls, cousins from Mexico in matching colorful outfits; Perry wrapped them in a long, tight hug as the crowd cheered for them and for Mexico, a heartwarming and surprising moment.
I mentioned earlier that I got the hot mess I was expecting. It didn’t come from Perry, but from opening act Rebecca Black (yes, “Friday” Rebecca Black). It’s not that she’s a bad singer; she’s OK, and much improved from her “Friday” days. It’s that her seven-song set was marred by a tacky, mismatched outfit, underwhelming choreography and an incredibly misguided concept. Black’s new album is called “Salvation,” and the stage was dotted with Westboro Baptist Church-style signs such as “Turn to Salvation.” If you didn’t know the name of Black’s album, and I’m guessing most people didn’t, it would (and did) come off as confusing and distasteful.
But back to Katy Perry. To some, Perry is a pop princess, an idol who can do no wrong. (A lot of those people were in attendance on Saturday.) To others, she’s an out-of-touch celebrity, a full-of-herself singer who hitched an 11-minute ride in Jeff Bezos’ rocket and declared herself an astronaut.
I fall somewhere in the middle. And so does the Lifetimes tour. Some moments are joyous and full of emotion, others are too cringe to be believed. But if the measure of a concert’s success is how happy it makes the fans, Katy Perry hit a home run last night in Phoenix.
A few more pictures from Katy Perry’s Lifetimes tour:
Katy Perry battling a giant hose at her Lifetimes tour on July 12, 2025, at PHX Arena.
Jennifer Goldberg
