Five Things: Katy Perry at Honda Center

Katy Perry brought her new “Prismatic” tour to Honda Center in Anaheim on Tuesday night. A full review is coming, but here are a few early thoughts from the margins of our notebooks.

1. Christian protesters have got the wrong target.

Outside the Honda Center, several dozen earnest, young evangelicals waved signs with such slogans as “The Wages of Sin Is Death” to persuade Perry concertgoers to flee and repent. But the object of their protest is a former Christian pop singer who has a teary, redemptive single called “By the Grace of God” that’s about finding spiritual salvation to overcome depression. If you’re looking for more overtly biblical-sexual metaphors to protest in pop music, try “Anaconda.”

2. On the other hand, the Old Gods looked pretty compelling.

For the “Dark Horse” segment of Perry’s show, she got her dance troupe in sinister Egyptian streetwear that made Anubis, Osiris and all seem worthy of a religious revival. Three hundred years from now, maybe the All Seeing Eye of Juicy J atop a pyramid will wind up on U.S. currency.

3. What’s a ‘90s revival if you’re born in the mid 2000s?

Perry’s “Walking on Air” is inspired by the big-diva house sound of the early Clinton era, but what would a generation born no earlier than Bush’s second term make of smiley faces and baggy rave pants? For most young Perry fans at Honda Center, the ‘90s dance-music revival is just another exotic period in ancient history that might as well be ancient Egypt.

4. Perry, like everyone around here, is a big old hippie

For anyone who forgot that she is a born and bred Southern Californian, Perry said she grows kale in her backyard and dedicated a song to “all the pizzas I can’t digest anymore” after discovering a gluten intolerance. Sounds like the only menage she’s having on “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” is one of goji berries, flaxseed and coconut milk.

5. Even pop stars look over their shoulders

At several points in the set, Perry alluded to almost being over the hill at 30 and not the “skinniest or prettiest” singer on the radio anymore. If there’s no hope for Katy Perry to feel happy about her self-image today, then yeesh, we’re all pretty much done for. But this 31-year-old reviewer with a nascent beer gut appreciated the commiserating while taking notes in a room doused in the dew of youth.

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