iHeartRadio Music Festival Friday: Katy Perry Roars, But The Old School Soars

By the time that Nate Ruess and the rest of fun. joined Queen and Lambert for "Fat Bottomed Girls," the audience seemed to pick up on how special the performance was -- not just because it featured a hard-to-duplicate collaboration, but because that collaboration was uniformly excellent. Queen/Lambert was an unconventional headliner on Friday night, but Lambert's manicured vocal blasts were able to harness rock songs that everyone in attendance knew and loved -- "Bohemian Rhapsody," anyone? -- which more than than made up for the lack of a current pop star closing out the show.

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Speaking of which, Katy Perry glided through the night's penultimate set with ease and aplomb, her voice clearly strengthened since "Teenage Dream" but her choreography somewhat lacking. Backstage before her set, another journalist asked Perry if she was ready to perform her new album "Prism" on the iHeartRadio stage -- to which Perry nervously laughed and confided that her performance would be mostly composed of past hits. There was little Katy news revealed in front of the thousands at the MGM Grand Garden Arena (Perry did debut new non-single "Dark Horse" live, with Juicy J popping onstage to rap his guest verse), and although Perry's many, many hits would normally suffice for a show like this, the anticipation for "Prism's" as-yet-unheard material is fervent, and the audience was a bit quiet when the set ended without any big reveals. Those in attendance were given glimpses of what we can imagine Perry's next huge tour will look like (hint: there will be lots of crystals and prisms), but, alas, not the real thing. "Wide Awake," "Teenage Dream" and "California Gurls" are all welcome replays, but onlookers were ready for Perry to dominate the ring that she set up when she put forth "Roar."

During the evening, Tiesto and Benny Benassi unfurled beat collections, Robin Thicke lost a shirt button while performing "Blurred Lines," Chris Brown danced the night away during a manic medley and J. Cole won the guest-star game by bringing out Miguel for "Power Trip" and then TLC for "Crooked Smile." But Elton John, wearing a jewel-enrusted suit and a puppy's smile, sounded fresher than the lot, especially when delivering his performance's centerpiece, "Tiny Dancer." The MGM Grand Garden Area was locked in a sing-along few songs, or artists, could conjure when John dove into the staple, and when his set ended after "I'm Still Standing," everyone watching wanted more. Can the old guard dominate the whole weekend, since Paul McCartney is expected to perform on Saturday night? Stay tuned.