Massive LED screens follow the storyline of a digital Katy avatar on a mission to save humanity and the world’s butterfly population from an all-powerful AI overlord.

In line with the show’s futuristic aesthetic, dancers storm the stage in tech-warrior gear, weaving around a glowing figure-eight platform that pulses like a neon-lit motherboard.

It’s a full-throttle sensory overload — and it works.

And yes, the infamous “cringe dance” survived. But in Brisbane, it landed exactly as intended: a self-aware, campy moment of comic relief between pyro blasts and aerial stunts. The second Katy hit that dorky shimmy, 13,500 fans screamed with joy. What the critics missed is that it’s supposed to be silly. It’s camp. It’s Katy.

And what those naysayers also forgot to mention is that the rest of the choreography is seriously impressive. Perry doesn’t just dance, she soars.

She kicked off the night suspended in mid air, soaring out of a hidden stage lift, and spent much of the concert, flying, flipping, and spinning upside down above the crowd, all while singing live.

At one point, she even sings while riding a giant butterfly over the moshpit.

As someone who gets motion sickness in the back seat of an Uber, I can’t overstate how wild that is.

Between aerial stunts, there were countless costume changes — each more outrageous than the last — mostly made up of bedazzled bras, high-cut body shirts, and glittering underwear sets that screamed vintage Perry with a futuristic twist.

And she can still drop into the splits at 40, which deserves its own standing ovation.

Vocally, she was near flawless, a reminder of the powerhouse voice that made her famous.

Midway through the show, she brought it back to her roots with Thinking of You on acoustic guitar, joined by a shy 17-year-old Gold Coast fan named Flynn, who she invited onstage to play percussion.