Review: Katy Perry @ Water Rats

'I want you to pop my cherry!' shouts Katy Perry, at this her first ever UK gig. Knowing exactly how to drive the teenagers packed into London's tiny Water Rats wild, she's even more wide-eyed and coy than she looks on TV – her vampish dress showing off, as one punter put it, 'a great rack'.

Her debut album isn't out yet, but this crowd know every word. Undoubtedly a show-woman, Katy's bright blue eyes flash round the room wildly as she spends every moment trying to shock whether it be burping into the mic, begging the audience to 'touch her boob', telling us about her sexual exploits or peppering her lyrics with swearing.

Ripping into boys is a major theme. 'If You Can Afford Me' tells them off for expecting too much in return for dinner, while the unashamedly cruel 'You're So Gay' disses her ex for being too metrosexual. Named as her 'sing-along anthem', her casual use of 'gay' as a derogatory term is reprehensible.

While the insincere rocky ballads show off her Alanis-esque voice, it's the poppy 'Hot N Cold' that we enjoyed the most. A song almost too good for Perry, it's a pulsating pop rock anthem that P!nk would kill for.

Katy disappears briefly off stage for a mock call to her super Christian mom. 'I just want to make one thing clear, she was really f**king hot!' she shouts, before launching into a rocked up version of bisexual shock-a-thon 'I Kissed A Girl' complete with head thrashing guitar breakdown.

Katy Perry, obsessed with bodily parts, sexuality and acting all alternative, is the perfect pin up for 15-year-olds who find emo too dark. It's calculated corporate quirk and as that alone, is very good at what it does.

Katy Perry in London

We just saw brazen hussy Katy Perry play a tiny gig at London's Water Rats. I have to write 300 words about it tomorrow so shall save you the detailed analysis for the moment. Needless to say it was rubbish.

Best bits:

1. Boy is all over girlfriend. Girlfriend goes to bar. Boy gawps at Perry then texts friend "My God man, in the flesh I can't stop staring at her rack."

2. 'I Kissed A Girl' pumps away. Drunk mid 30s couple barge into the back of the crowd and start trying to push their way through. They push the wrong man who pushes them hard into the rest of the crowd. Close face talking ensues between men, woman wanders off shouting, "It's not Top of the Pops love. It's a fucking Katy Perry gig."

Amazing.

Review: Red Blooded Women at Water Rats

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Good new girl groups are far and few between. While we may have loved Sugababes back in the day and Girls Aloud are still owners of our heart, for everyone of them there's also been a Clea, a Mania and a Frank. Now, more than ever since the time of Spice Power, new girl groups are trying to make it, with Red Blooded Women being one name in a long list.

Put together by Mark Pattison, a former journalist for Popjustice, you'd expect them to be sassy, edgy and poptastic and it seems they are just that. We caught Carly, Candy and Liz at one a small London gig at Water Rats last night playing to an excitable crowd in an excitable manner. There's no faux graces or stage school wide eyes about these three, instead you're kind of transported to the world of the Spice Girls before they were famous with cheeky on stage banter, flirting with the audience and leader of the gang Liz becoming your new best mate.

As The Saturdays make the first girl group chart stamp of 2008 with their Yazoo sampling 'If This Is Love', Red Blooded Women somehow manage to choose the same band to sample on opening track 'Colour Me Dirty'. Typical of their sound, it's big, brash and oozing with 80s synths much like debut single 'You Made Your Bed', complete with 'With Every Heartbeat' style breakdown. Our favourite song had to be cheeky PWL homage 'Keep up The Attraction' dedicated to Banarama and built with mischevious dance routines.

We have to be honest here, but we're not entirely sure that all vocals we heard tonight were live. They were a bit too perfect, still we're not talking about anything serious and chinstroking here, just pure unashamed pop calculated for dancefloor perfection.

Check them out online here and download a megamix of their forthcoming album here.