Doja Cat skewers haters and courts darkness in 'Scarlet' tour at Austin's Moody Center

The release cycle for Doja Cat’s fourth studio album “Scarlet” has been one of the strangest in recent memory. Aesthetically, she moved from colorful junglescape to cathedral of darkness with explicit Satanic imagery. Beyond the Halloween-themed stylization, in the weeks leading up to and following the release, Doja was in the news for both her open hostility to fans and her apparent affinity for right-wing trolls.

Consequently, her Monday night show at the Moody Center was not sold out. There were no scalpers on the east side of the arena and no lines at the door around 7:30 p.m. Inside, the floor section (set with chairs) and the upper balcony seat banks seemed full, but in the pricey mezzanine, there were visible unoccupied seats in several sections.

Which is not to say that there weren’t people at the show. A diverse crowd of thousands that skewed young and female turned out, sang along and screamed wildly. Many wore devil horns, some of which flashed red in the dark. A few old school die-hards wore bovine prints and cow ears.

Over an hour and a half, the artist also known as Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini flexed her skills as a rapper, a singer and a dancer in a truly spectacular theatrical experience broken into five acts.

Here’s a five-part breakdown of the show.

Act 1: Chasing 'Demons' in the dark cathedral

A wild scream ripped through the arena as the lights went dark. Massive screens at the back of the stage — shaped like an arrow-tip triangle that pointed into the audience — flashed in vertigo-inducing horror movie skitters. A dancer draped in gauzy, blood-red veils moved toward the front of the stage. She dropped through the floor and in her place emerged Doja Cat, clad in dominatrix black with a platinum pixie cut, accompanied by plumes of fire that shot from the stage.

She came out guns blazing and ready to prove her rap bonafides. As she spat “WYM Freestyle” surrounded by flames, it was as if she was emerging from the depths of hell to the sound of brassy bombast (a live band was obscured on the sides of the stage) as the acrid smell of stage smoke hung in the air.

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The audience held captive in her dark fantasy, a giant spider hovered above her as she exposed her “Demons.” When the crowd shouted along as she rapped “we are enemies, we are foes,” it became clear that whether the Doja controversies are legitimate responses to the extreme pressures of fame or self-owns, she feels most powerful when she is fighting back. Standing in the firing line, she feels stronger because of the blast.

A slow procession of red-robed dancers ushered in “Shutcho.” While she taunted religious types with a red cathedral projected at the back of the stage, “cussin’ on a Sunday” has never sounded so catchy.

When the stage went a cool blue for a lovely version of “Agora Hills,” it almost felt like a relief, a redemption. An angel appeared in silhouette on the big screen.

Act 2: Intimate moments in the 'Red Room'

Doja Cat entered the second movement of her performance pursued by a corps of nearly a dozen dancers. In a series of elaborate stage pictures, they chased her, trapped her and flipped her around during “Attention.”

And then they were gone. Standing at the point of the triangle with two singers far-removed at the back in a deconstructed nightclub set up, she sang a breathy version of “Often.” Then she did a gorgeous avant jazz flex on a cover of the Hiatus Kaiyote song “Red Room.”

Though she doesn’t usually talk during shows, she took a brief pause to let the audience know how much she loves Texas and to try to convince the men in the house to say, “Oooh, I’m a little girl,” in their twinkiest tones

The dancers mobbed around her, bringing “Gun” to life and “Ain’t (expletive)” drew one of the biggest cheers of the evening.

“You guys have too much bass in your voice and I couldn’t hear it, but you made an effort and that’s all that matters,” she said after this exercise flopped.

Act 3: The Tik-Tok queen we thought we knew

The crowd went wild as a huge African dance intro ushered in “Woman,” a lead-in to a set of “Planet Her” tracks that drew some of the biggest cheers of the evening.

“Get Into It (Yuh)” was another huge dance number and “Need to Know” was a massive sing-along. On the latter, Doja spit bars as lasers shot pins of light through the arena. On the big screen, her face appeared in a shifting box, conjuring both the focus feature on a cell phone and the targeting scope on a rifle.

“Kiss Me More” was a jubilant production that ended with the dancers smooching on stage (in various gender configurations) and a largely unsuccessful attempt to create a kiss cam with the audience.

This was an evolved version of the Doja Cat who rocked the Austin City Limits Music Festival in 2021, and the audience was all in.

Act 4: Pursued by the disembodied eye

With the show carefully produced to wring every ounce of drama out of these songs, a swell of strings ushered in “Paint the Town Red.” Under cool blue light, Doja sang while a detached eyeball, tethered to the back of the stage by a giant optic nerve, tracked her around the stage. With graphic anatomical accuracy and human legs, the eyeball was both sinister and comical.

The dance corps sat in folding chairs at the beginning of “(Expletive) the Girls (FTG)” then used them to build levels in an explosive climax that ended with an epic dance solo.

Act 5: Lil Mama goes off

In the final movement of the show, Doja was back to skewer her haters and prove her mettle as one of the pop greats of her generation. On a spinning stage, she took us on a danger cruise through L.A. on “97.” Surely, no one believed her when she spit “OK, I don't mean to instigate,” near the top of “Ouchies,” but everyone likes to feel like the underdog overcoming, and the audience was definitely down for the fight.

Red banners that dropped from the ceiling framed the stage on “Can’t Wait,” another jaw-dropping dance number and “Go Off” was a beautiful spotlight of her female dancers.

The show closed the way we knew it would with a shout along version of “Wet Vaginas.” While reveling in the fact that just a decade ago, a rap artist persuading a majority female crowd to scream about aroused lady parts at the top of their lungs would have been unthinkable, I noticed the gentleman across the aisle who came to the show with his wife (who rocked Doja look-alike hair) and two young girls questioning his life choices.

So yeah, Doja Cat is clearly one of the most talented stars in the game right now. But sometimes, it’s complicated.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Review: Doja Cat plays with fire during Austin stop of 'Scarlet' tour