Indie Cred Revoked

It's very possible that I have no indie cred. I'm a SUV-driving chubby Republican physician, living in the Southwest, who owns approximately zero vintage clothing. But if I do have any indie cred, I may have traded it in last week when I went to a Katy Perry concert.

There are mitigating factors. I went with 3 girls, and I feel most any behavior is validated if you do it with multiple women. I want to say that I went to The Decemberists the next week to balance it out, but sadly I had to work that night so missed the concert. The fact that I was working rather than seeing the Decemberists is probably another strike against me. But the most important mitigator (surprisingly not a word) is that the opening act was Robyn. So in my mind, I went to a Robyn concert and Katy Perry happened to be there.



Robyn is awesome for several reasons. First, she sings pop that isn’t popular, which is my favorite kind of pop. She’s Scandinavian, which is always a plus. She has sweet hair. She sings at least 4 songs about robots. She sang last year at the Nobel ceremony. You’ve got to be doing something right when they ask you to be the entertainment at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. Or it could have been because she lives down the street from the convention center.



In any case, Robyn is great, and she was great in concert. It was a short set, but high energy and fun. She dances much like Thom Yorke, ie not at all with the music. Which is odd, considering she is performing the music. But it emphasizes her independent spirit. The audience clearly didn’t understand what was going on, but they clapped politely.

The audience was a major benefit of going to the show. Where else can you see hundreds of people, mostly girls but not entirely, dressed like Katy Perry? How weird would it be to be an artist and have people dress EXACTLY like you at your shows? Some were “run of the mill” with some kooky hair and a wedding veil but there were a surprising number of girls wearing only candy, and whatever adhesive was required to keep it in place. Maybe only sugar. There were a lot of girls dressed for the club, a gaggle of tweens and somewhat disturbing number of kids 4-10. Seriously parents, you suck.

Katy herself was Katy, which is to say, attractive and fairly entertaining. She showed up on stage with spinning pinwheels protruding from her breasts and singing about feeling like a virgin and I had a moment of sadness for her parents. Then I enjoyed the show. It’s ridiculous, frothy nonsense, but it’s fun to hear and fun to watch. She show occasionally devolved into overt weirdness (giant pork chops floating down from the rafters?) but was generally just bright colors, energetic if uninspired dancing and irresistible hooks. Although it detracted from the overall audio quality, it was fun to have the entire audience "singing" along. I didn’t take any pictures or video, as every picture I’ve ever taken from a concert has been complete rubbish, but you can image what it was like. And if you can’t, you can probably get tickets for when she comes to your town.