Miley Cyrus and fan get naked in absurd House of Blues performance

“Peace. Love. Sex. Drugs.”

Not quite the same message Miley gave the audience the last time I attended one of her concerts at age 12. Let’s just say she has come a long way since her Best of Both Worlds tour days almost decade ago.

As the stage darkened for the start of the show, her seven-man band played the opening chords of “Party in the USA.” I thought, “Oh, heck yes!” The crowd went wild.

But that 10-second introduction was all we heard of the old Miley.

The House of Blues soon transformed from a typical rock and roll venue to a wild party. Spirits were high, as were the concert-goers…the smell of weed was in the air.

The floor became a raging mob of rainbow confetti and massive floating Mylar balloons, as her LED lighting backdrops blinded the audience.

Miley, rocking rainbow dreads, screamed “Yeah, I smoke pot / Yeah, I love peace / but I don’t give a fuck / I ain’t no hippy.”

And it’s true – she really didn’t give an eff, and the audience knew she was not there just to perform. She wanted to party.

If shock value is what you’re looking for, you would not have been disappointed. For the following two hours I found myself asking, “Is that for real?” “What is that?” “Are you serious?”

Miley’s beautiful, talented voice is not what I remember from the concert.

Instead, I think about her ensemble of Halloween parade-like costumes including a slab of butter, the sun, the moon, a hypersexual stripper baby, a hippie, a space man, a bowl of cereal, and concluding the show wearing nothing but a harness with a giant strap-on, exposing herself to the entire audience.

One song after another, all I could say is “What did I just see?”

Singing from her upcoming album, Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, Miley took time before most performances to explain the significance of her lyrics. Between love, lust, and partying, to singing about if she were a melting slab of butter, she also expressed her love for Boston, its people, and its ability to come together after tragedy.

She said: “It’s your fucking city, and I love this fucking city.”

In the later half of the show, the stage colors turned blue, red, and white, as Miley, dressed in a mirrored, bejeweled space suit, sat at her piano. She began to speak about tragedy, and my roommate and I thought, “Oh nice, she is doing a tribute to Paris.”

But, no.

Instead, Miley belted a heartfelt ballad about her dead blowfish, Pablow, and the audience lost connection, not knowing how to react. It seemed rather foolish for her to equate the death of her fish to a “tragedy” in light of the recent mass shootings and attacks in Paris and Beirut. The 23-year-old was looking for a reaction, but I don’t think she got the one she wanted.

After her series of ballads, Miley returned in her final raunchy unicorn-themed strapped contraption of an outfit. As she danced basically naked on the stage, a woman in the crowd also took her shirt off and danced on the shoulders of a man.

They say imitation is a form of flattery. Is she mimicking Madonna and Lady Gaga with her sexual performances and outrageous costumes?

No, she’s just being Miley. Ridiculous, obscene, carefree Miley.

Her show concluded how it started: more confetti, more balloons, this time spelling “FUCK YEAH BOSTON,” and a song we all knew, “We Can’t Stop.”

The Boston Globe described the conclusion of the show well, and said: “She ended on a high note.” This definitely took into account both her mental state and how the general admission floor converted to one big dance party.

Was the Miley concert a “once in a lifetime experience?”

For me, I have to say yes.

Key word: once.