Why Katy Perry's Xcel concert lacked the vision and crispness of her videos

Star Tribune photo by Renee Jones Schneider

Katy Perry started as a Christian singer, moved on to the punkish Warped Tour, then her own club tour in 2009 and — boom — a headlining arena tour in 2011.

Her first arena foray, which visited the X on Tuesday, showed that:

* she's not in touch with her audience (about 20 percent of the soldout crowd was kids with parents)

* she needs to filter her comments (that story about her body's reaction to food poisoning was just gross and she even asked the fans if the story was too much for them);

* she should rethink her pacing;

*she doesn't need to pad her show even though she has only two albums (two cover songs would have been enough in the Katy-oke segment);

* she should be more considerate of her youthful fans and have only one opening act (Brit star Natalia Kills definitely looked and comported herself like a star, DJ Skeet Skeet was superfluous) and finish the show at an earlier hour (not after 11 p.m. on a school night).

In short, the show was not as good as I expected. It lacked the clear vision and crispness of her videos. Her salutes to her videos and Grammy performance ("At the Movies") were fun, but the choreography was not consistently sharp and exciting. And, as my review stated, she's not a graceful or athletic dancer and her voice isn't made for an arena. But, at least, she was singing live.

Here's what she sang: