Doja Cat @ OVO Hydro, Glasgow, 21 May

Doja Cat is a complete freak and like most freaks she knows how to put on one hell of a show. With each album she's released since her 2018 debut, the Los Angeles rapper and singer has made a point of being difficult to pin down. Each new record seems to arrive with some kind of software update: a rejection of that last version of Doja Cat the public thought they'd figured out. She has veered from woozy, laidback R'n'B to unashamedly commercial pop-rap, to dark, horror-inflected theatrics. She’s even found time for a side hustle as a self-proclaimed “messy” internet troll. Last year’s Vie is the name above the door on this tour, but the setlist pulls generously from every phase of her wild and wonderful career.

With the exception of a staggering opening sequence – Doja rises slowly toward the ceiling while the enormous train of her shoulder-padded 80s gown falls to the floor below – the staging is surprisingly restrained. A giant lightbox elevates her terrific band, who she plays off like a circus ringmaster. The funk and soul textures of some songs are particularly well served by their live arrangements; tracks like Gorgeous, Ain’t Shit and Silly! Fun! lean into their grooves and come to life in a whole new way.

The show is more straight up than the over-the-top mechanics you can increasingly expect from an arena pop tour. No costume changes, no elaborate staging or set-up shifts. This feels like a proper gig and is all the better for it. The show is divided into distinct moods and held together by the force of Doja Cat’s charisma and stage presence. Prince feels like an obvious comparison – especially since she's dressed head-to-toe in purple for the evening – and the band certainly owe some debt in their style to the Revolution. But there’s also more than a bit of Tina Turner in the physicality of Doja’s performance style.

The heaviest most rocky arrangements seem to suit her best and arrive late in the set, during the show’s most bonkers section. It’s a stretch which sees Doja intentionally wrap her neck up in the microphone cord, and later sing into that mic as it dangles from the crook in her high heeled shoe, her leg held up over her head. A lot of this madness is straightforwardly hilarious, with big screen visuals doubling down on the clownish-ness of it all. Close-up silent movie-style pictures of Doja glitch up behind her, shifting from sweetly smiling to screaming to maniacally eating a microphone. The band bring a harder edge to songs like Demons and WYM Freestyle, but never more so than on the punked-up, guitar-heavy headbanging version of Tia Tamera, a real highlight in an already mental and memorable portion of the show. It's confirmation that alongside everything else she has been over the course of her varied career – rapper, pop star, internet wind-up – Doja Cat is also an absolute rock star.