Katy Perry: Prismatic World Tour

Michael Cox READ TIME: 2 MIN.

The spectacular spectacle of Katy Perry's "Prismatic World Tour" was clearly mind-blowing when it was live and is still pretty impressive on the small screen.

This concert film was shot in Sydney, Australia during The Prismatic World Tour, a run that included 151 performances with over 6 legs on 5 continents.

More impressive for its visuals than for its music, it borrows from every great stage spectacle you can imagine. There is acrobatics that rival "Cirque du Soleil," puppetry borrowed from "War Horse" or "The Lion King," audience interactions evocative of Diana Ross, musical allusions to Madonna, and there's even costuming from "Cats" - not to mention some technical wizardry that is completely cutting edge.

The pop star has 9 major costume changes and 5 big hair changes, all performed with such dexterity that they are nothing to scoff at. In total, over 275 costumes were designed for the tour, including 80 for the dancers.

Directed for the stage by Baz Halpin, the show has 7 thematic sets, each with its own visual design, costumes, video projections and special effects: the eye-popping "prismatic," the stylized "Egyptian," the highly campy "'cat'-toure," the misnamed "acoustic" (though the songs in this set were more intimate, someone really need to explain to these people what "acoustic" means), the not-really-retro "throwback," the enormously over produced pre-finale "hyperneon" and the real finale "encore" (which required the live audience to wear special glasses but we get to see reproduced with CGI).

Though Perry makes a real effort to interact directly with the audience, her between-song patter is less than sincere. But when you consider that she is performing for an audience of over 90,000 people you can see why her behavior is larger-than-life.

The question is not whether you are going to watch this concert, but whether you are going to watch this concert in its entirety. (After all, this woman broke the Guinness World Record for her number of Twitter followers, highlights from this concert will saturate the Internet.)

There are over 30-minutes of special features on this Blu-ray including some behind-the-scenes looks at sets and costumes and over 19-minutes of the cast and crew directly talking about their feelings after participating in this tour.

"Katy Perry: Prismatic World Tour"
Blu-ray
$13.39
katyperry.com


by Michael Cox

Read These Next