Ke$ha Brings Her Big Perverted Glamfest (And a Hell of a Lot of Fun) to WaMu, Last Night

Marcella D. Volpintesta

Ke$ha
Saturday, Sept. 10
WaMu Theatre

When I told a friend of mine I was going to see Ke$ha, he said (in the driest tone possible): "I hope she doesn't just have glitter bombs, but has, like, a big glitter cannon."

Well, she did. And she fired it off a whole handful of times. Not only that, but she dropped a bunch of balloons from overhead on the crowd. And there was a Cookie Monster-looking piñata that Ke$ha and her stage dancers tore apart. And there were strobe lights. And a man dancing around in a six-foot penis costume. And the crowd was 90 percent teenage girls all decked out in face paint and slutty clothes. And there was Ke$ha, a performer who promised a pop party like no other--and delivered. And drank fake blood from a fake heart.

Marcella D. Volpintesta

Ke$ha's peeps get in the mood before the show.

A Ke$ha show is an amalgamation of sorts--like living in a ultra-modern, glammed-out surreal hair-metal fantasy land in which Bowie, Motley Crue, the New York Dolls, Iggy Pop, and Madonna all get together for a great perverted party on the set of Tron. And it's fun! A great, premeditated exercise in bombastic fun! Which is all that Ke$ha seems to be out to prove at this point in her brief career--how easy it is to have bombastic fun once you let yourself go.

At first, the energy of a Ke$ha show might be overwhelming, but once you give yourself over to her insanely catchy pop hits, the spectacle becomes impossible to resist. Ke$ha tore through her Top 40 hits, "Tik Tok," "Your Love Is My Drug," and "We R Who We R," all while strutting about the stage enticing the crowd to join her in the awesomeness. Her audience-engagement included dragging one lucky fellow onstage and fastening him to a chair with pink tape for "Grow a Pair". The poor guy took it like a champ as Ke$ha chastised him--and all men--for not giving her exactly what she wants. At the close of the song, she instructed her stage dancers to get the man off her stage.

Before the show, I chatted with a WaMu bartender who thought Ke$ha didn't have what it takes to be a real pop star on par with Gaga or Katy Perry. But there has been something unique about Ms. Ke$ha since day one--the girl doesn't give a shit. She's going to perform her synthed-out, AutoTuned, glittery pop songs and throw balloons around and tape up men in chairs and thrash at a piñata all she wants. There's nothing to dissect, nothing to criticize. You just have to see it for yourself.

Check out pics of Ke$ha and her glam fans at the show.

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