Katy Perry: AFL grand final pregame show review – big hits dominate uneventful set

Katy Perry reportedly fought to get her new album on the setlist for her AFL grand final performance. But in the end, the crowd clearly cared more about the cameo by homegrown hitmaker Tina Arena.

Before Perry took to the stage on Saturday, it hadn’t been her day, her week or even her year.

This was meant to be a comeback summer for the 39-year-old, but nothing has quite gone to plan.

Woman’s World, her first single in three years, failed to make any significant impact on the charts and was widely derided as a years-too-late attempt at cashing in on girlboss feminism (the Guardian review gave it one star).

Related: Katy Perry: 143 review – wan Europop revival falls short of total catastrophe

The new album that followed, 143, earned the dubious distinction of becoming the worst-rated album on review aggregator Metacritic for almost 15 years.

Perry was roundly criticised for working on the LP with Dr Luke, the producer embroiled in a decade-long legal battle with popstar Kesha. She was even investigated by the government for Spain’s Balearic islands for ecological damage caused while filming the video for her single Lifetimes.

Some have posited she may have been cursed by nuns, which at this point feels like a generous explanation for a tone deaf album rollout.

And then there’s the more footy-centric battles.

It was rumoured Perry banned journalists from asking about the tepid reaction to 143 during her Australian promotional tour.

The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young called for the American to be replaced by a local artist, the platform redirected to a homegrown talent during what’s been a tough few years for the Australian music industry.

Then there was the brain-deadening debate over whether Perry playing her 2013 single Roar would be an unfair morale boost to the Brisbane Lions.

And, most significantly, reports swirled that Perry, not willing to admit defeat on 143, wanted to play songs from her new album at Saturday’s grand final – a prospect the AFL was reportedly not so keen on, pushing back to demand the hits.

In the end, Perry only managed to cram a few minutes’ worth of her new material into the set. Of the nine tracks the pop star tore through during her pre-game show at Melbourne’s MCG, just two came from the new album – about 70 seconds of the spiky electronic track Gorgeous and a slightly longer section of Lifetimes, an ode to her love for husband, Orlando Bloom, and daughter Daisy. This suggests the deal Perry struck with the AFL was that she could play some of her new stuff as long as none of that stuff was Woman’s World.

Elsewhere, it was all Perry’s big hits – Roar (sorry Swans), Dark Horse, California Gurls, Teenage Dream and Firework.

The most noteworthy moment of an otherwise uneventful set came from the heavily hinted cameo appearance by Tina Arena, the Australian singer embracing Perry as they performed I Kissed A Girl (for a second I thought they were going to do something interesting and recreate this moment – but alas, no) and then Arena’s 1994 hit Chains.

Arena’s appearance was the only thing that seemed to really stir the crowd, who seemed otherwise mute.

Perry’s paycheque for the AFL set? A reported $5m dollars. Not bad for 17 minutes’ work.