Last Monday Katy Perry filled the Odyssey in Belfast. 10,000 people flocked to see her, surprisingly not all teenage girls. Her California Dreams tour is the second time she’s toured for her album Teenage Dream, but as it was her first time ever playing in Belfast, the place was buzzing. The show started with a creepy sequence about a butcher’s shop and ended with her falling asleep and waking up in her dream world – Candyfornia – almost too sickly sweet to handle.

She opened with her album’s namesake, Teenage Dream and quickly moved onto the upbeat Hummingbird Heartbeat. After that, her rendition of Waking Up In Vegas got anyone in the crowd who wasn’t already singing along started. She had a bit of a technical issue when she moved on to Ur So Gay and her mic wasn’t working – a stagehand quickly replaced it for her, but I guess it was a good thing, because it proved she was singing live. When she performed her slightly suggestive song Peacock, she wore a Vegas showgirl’s costume and the back up dancers did a feather dance around her with enormous peacock feather fans.

 

She got a huge round of cheers when she got one very lucky fan up on stage – provided he took his shirt off. After seeing him shirtless, well she picked the correct audience member. She also tried her hand at a Northern Irish accent – and didn’t actually do too badly. She then did a slow and sexy version of her first major hit I Kissed A Girl, unsurprisingly leaving the lad with a massive grin on his face.

 

The light show during E.T was incredible, with hundreds of green lasers really adding to the song. As she sang What Am I Living For she performed a strange bondage dance with four male back-up dancers. She entertained the crowd with her banter telling how she’s half-Irish (always goes down well) and although she may have black hair, she has ginger roots.  She later did a slow set and did a truly heart-wrenching version of The One That Got Away mixed with Adele’s Someone Like You, and then came out over the audience on a pink cloud to sing Thinking of You. She sang it whilst playing the guitar but with no back up from her band and it showed off how powerful her voice really is.

 

To speed the show back up she donned her famous blue wig and did a quick-change act whilst singing Hot N Cold, which had 7 costume changes in quick succession. Just before she started to close the show with Last Friday Night all of her crew came on stage to surprise her with a massive pink cake for her 27^th birthday. She blew out the candles and promptly ran down the stage and threw the cake into the crowd.

 

She finished with an encore of California Gurls using 3 massive candy-cane guns to cover the crowd with foam, laughing and saying, ‘And you thought cake was messy?’ Confetti guns followed to complete a brilliant stage show and a thoroughly enjoyable concert.