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Friday, August 16, 2013
Music / Live Reviews Live review: Ke$ha, Uptown Amphitheatre (8/15/2013)
Posted By Alison Angel on Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 10:19 AM
Ke$ha
Uptown Amphitheatre
Aug. 15, 2013
I got glitter bombed. Multiple times. In fact, here on the morning after Ke$ha's Uptown Amphitheatre concert, I am still recovering and slowly extracting glitter from my hair.
The girl who made glitter dirty, has her own "glitter guy" and spends more on glitter per month than most people make definitely proved those rumors to be true.
On top of it raining glitter constantly on the stage and into the crowd, every now and then one of Ke$ha's so-called "animals" would literally throw buckets of glitter up in the air. Alarming because, well, they love the girl so much, they managed to sneak in buckets of the stuff. Now that's dedication.
Not to mention it shows that Ke$ha (don't forget the dollar sign) has made a serious progression in the mainstream scene since "Tik Tok" came out 2010. Back then, it was kind of received as the lowest form of pop - a fun song, but no one was really trying to emulate the girl who tried to make trashy partying an art form.
Fast forward a couple years and, surprise surprise, she has succeeded, as evidenced by taking one look at the thousand-plus people who showed up to party vicariously through her. Teenagers use Ke$ha's music as their rebellious party anthem, and the kids came out in full force Thursday night, wearing her signature hot pants with ripped stockings (even the 12-year-olds). Now, with a more-polished image and nine top 10 hits on the Billboard charts from her first two albums, Ke$ha's crowd includes 20-and30-somethings who, while not attempting to pull off the hot pants and bustier, still paid homage to the party queen by slapping on some glitter.
The show's a lot more polished, too, even though the nasty Ke$ha - profanity and middle fingers for all! - we all know and sort-of love is always there. The production quality of her shows, now that she's exploded in the Top 40s, is much higher, and there's set changes and more outfit changes than one would expect from her - one second she struts onstage in a glitter (of course) one-piece bustier, the next she disappears and reemerges on top of a portable jungle gym stripper pole contraption, hot pants and cut-up t-shirt.
It was definitely more of performance art than a focus on the music - four dancers constantly accompanied Ke$ha, and it took away from her own performance at times (like when they immediately took the stage with ninja swords and masks once the lights went down). Ke$ha and her dancers did put on some entertaining moments though - when said stripper pole came on stage, for example, her bearded back-up dancers dressed in skin tight drag and worked the pole better than anyone I've ever seen.
Most of her vocals are heavily synthesized and effected on her songs, and the concert is no different - she was able to take the microphone away and interact with fans while the electronic Ke$ha still played in the background - but when she did actually sing, it was with a surprisingly good range.
I wish there was a little more of her actual voice in her performance, but the girl did put on a damn good show. Even if it was weird. And kind of like being on a confusing acid trip, thanks to the frequent appearance of drag queens, blow-up pigs and random life-size tigers and chickens dancing and making out with their own mascot heads. Entertaining does not begin to cover it. Neither does strange.
Setlist
Warrior
Crazy Kids
We R Who We R
Blow
Gold Trans Am
Dirty Love
Take it Off
Party at a Rich Dude's House
Animal
Supernatural
C'Mon
Blah Blah Blah
Your Love is My Drug
Tik Tok
Encore
Die Young
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