Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
It’s been a long 15 years since Kesha last visited Perth — an era that has seen her make more headlines for her legal battles than her music.
It has also been close to two decades since her most popular songs were released.
But none of that seemed to matter to the fans at the Perth HPC in Claremont on Thursday night who were delivered a strong dose of nostalgia from a time when the only “Tik Tok” that existed was a Kesha song.
The 38-year-old American — whose real name is Kesha Rose Sebert — has spent much of her recent years embroiled in a legal battle with her producer Łukasz Sebastian Gottwald, known as Dr Luke, suing him for alleged sexual abuse.
While she later dropped her lawsuit, she fought to be released from her “restrictive” contract with the producer, sparking the #FreeKesha movement, which eventually saw the singer settle out of court and move on from Dr Luke.
“I’ve now got the rights to my own voice back, started my own record company and wrote a bunch of bangers,” she told the crowd.
Emerging at 8pm, Kesha rose from underneath the stage channelling a Greek goddess, complete with gold headwear, and took us back to 2010 with her biggest hit “Tik Tok”.
“I’ve not sung these next songs in 13 years,” she told the crowd, adding she had taken out all of the original production and reproduced the songs specifically for the tour.
“I’ve had my songs taken from me but I wrote them and I wrote them for you.”
Kesha promised her fans, known as her “Animals”, that she would take them through her life’s work and offer an authentic experience, symbolising her getting “freedom from her past”.
She gave a rally cry to her long-term supporters, asking them to help her “take back my songs tonight” by singing along to her oldest hits.
Fans lapped up the nostalgia when she performed songs including Cannibal, Backstabber, Blow, Timber and Die Young.
And clearly lapping up the enthusiasm, she threw out red flags out into the mosh pit while performing her 2025 song Red Flag.
Kesha’s engagement with her fans was delightful to witness since some artists barely take the time to do it and she even asked the crowd for permission to “ramble” between songs.
Talking about writing her 2025 album, she said she went “into the woods” to do a lot of thinking about how she has been “looking for the one” to complete her.
“But I realised I am my own sugar daddy. I’m my own missing piece. I’m the one I’ve been waiting for my whole life,” she said.
While much of Kesha’s music might be of bygone era, you cannot deny her ability to entertain and understand her fanbase.
From being flirty and witty self to twerking on stage with her six dancers, it was evident she had trained hard to pull off the sexy spectacle.
She even managed to fit in four different costumes for the almost 90-minute concert, each look upstaging the next.
Kesha finished her show with Your Love Is My Drug and We R Who We R, wearing another stunning Greek goddess-inspired look — this one was silver and she lit up like a disco ball.
Her show was passionate, adoring at times, raunchy, proved why she became a household name in pop and achieved such success and support — and continues to do so.
Earlier in the night, Melbourne girlband Blusher set the scene with a 30-minute performance of their electronic, sugary pop tunes.
The trio haven’t played to arena crowds before touring with the megastar and with their infectious, cool-girl energy it was clear why Kesha chose them as her support act.
They played their own songs as well as a cover of Addison Rae’s Diet Pepsi and a remix of Kesha’s Glow.
3.5 out 5 stars
