katie perry

we had gone to a rock concert with jj last fall, at a small venue in paris, and had loved it. it was a special pleasure to go to a small concert hall and have such an intimate performance. so, carried away by this spirit, we booked tickets to katie perry for march 7. the concert hall was in a big public park with a science theme, called parc de la villette. venue was bigger than the last place we went, though not huge. it seats 3000? people, so we thought we’d try it. jj’s friend, amber was going too. i bought tickets for the 3 of us, and p decided not to go, so we offered to another of jj’s friends who said she’d take it. then the weekend before, she said she wouldn’t go after all. my mistake for not getting a commitment in the form of cash. i think she never even mentioned it to her mom. anyway, we were going to try to sell the ticket when we got there.

the concert was scheduled to start at 7:30. jj wanted to get there as early as possible, but there was a school fair at 5:30 presenting summer camps, that i wanted to take her to. we would not be able to leave until 6 or 6:30. amber and her mom were going to drive over at 6:00, so jj asked them to save us seats. we left at 6:30 and took the metro. the concert was at the most distant point from us, diagonally across paris, but the metro was fairly efficient with only one transfer, we were there in 40 mins. meanwhile, it turned out, amber’s dad was driving and through the miracle of cell phones, we discovered that they were driving around and around looking for the park. we ended up arriving first and saving them seats. but happily, amber’s dad, who did not have a ticket, decided he would buy ours and stay for the show. they did not arrive until after the warm up band had played and the dj had played – around 8:30, so it took them 2 and a half hours to get there!. according to jj, katie perry is a teeny bopper idol, so there were lots of younger girls in the audience and lots of older parental types. amber’s little sister came too, and the 3 girls sat together and screamed and waved their hands and rocked their fists. we parents were smiling, watching them and amber got mad at her parents and told them to stop looking. katie perry was ok. a bit too teeny bopper, many pieces seemed to lack structure, or much melody. i don’t know her music much, but there were a couple of big hits that were familiar. she has a strong voice. there were a lot of loud pieces and then she sang a quiet piece with acoustic guitar that was quite beautiful. the theme was candyland and the decor was all sugary and sweet giant pieces of candy. it was more disneyland than rock and roll. i laughed that her handsome male band members were clean cut and dressed in white suits with pastel trim and white hats and shoes. they looked VERY 70’s.

there were videos in between pieces that gave her time to change outfits and tried to stitch the songs together into a “wizard of oz” type story. not my type of music, but entertaining enough for me to sit through.

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