She’s Short, she’s sweet, she’s Sabrina Carpenter! The artist who has been in the game for a decade and is finally getting the recognition she deserves. Isn’t that sweet? I guess so. Sabrina Carpenter is currently on her fifth tour and her first arena tour for her newest album Short n’ Sweet.
Once the tour was announced, I knew in my heart I would get tickets somehow, someway for the Boston show. I signed up for presale and luckily got it, but I was at work and ultimately wasn’t able to get them. Luckily, there was a second presale and of course, I missed that too. I started to doubt that I would be able to get tickets because resale prices were insane, but I checked weekly nonetheless. It wasn’t until the week of the show I decided it wasn’t in the cards for me to go and accepted the loss. My fiancé is a huge fan of her as well and with 100% determination, he proposed that he would head to The Garden after work and wait in the box office line to try and get left over seats and I could keep checking ticket sites while I was at work, so that’s what we did. Luckily enough after a eight hours of secretly checking my phone every 30 minutes, a missed train stop, torn sweater, half twisted ankle from sprinting in doc Martens and five failed attempts at purchasing tickets that dropped in prices, I was finally able to get us and a friend tickets forty minutes before the show started. You’re probably wondering how I got ready and to the arena in that time, but that’s a story for another day.
We arrived at The Garden just in time to grab some adorable merch before Sabrina went on. We rushed to our seats and were surrounded by the sweetest crowd I’ve ever been in for a concert. It was such a pure ten minutes of compliments back and forth to those around. When the lights dimmed and the crowd started cheering, the show started with an animated video of the polly pocket princess herself, Sabrina. It shows her walking into a building leading into a pre recorded video of her in a bubble bath with a narrator talking through morning routine essentials. Sabrina is reminded she is supposed to be on stage which brings us to our first live appearance of her running across the stage in a towel and running behind. She runs downstairs in the towel and opens it to reveal a stunning sparkling Victoria Secret corset. Sabrina has the same corset in select different colors and for the Boston show it was yellow!
Sabrinas vision for this show was to create a fictional night where she’s getting ready before sunset, going out with friends and then having the late night chaos. The stage is designed to give a barbie house vibe with a bedroom, bathroom, main living space, stairways and a visual of a window screen. During Act 1 of the show she opens with “Taste” and walks through getting ready for whatever the night brings. The energy is high and exciting leading into “Good Graces.” Anytime I hear this song I just want to get up and dance, so being able to do that live while watching her and her incredible back up dancers perform was such a fun experience. As the energy calms from the hype of going out, she sits by a sage prop fire to sing “Slim Pickins” and then going into “Tornado Warnings” from her Previous Album “Emails I Can’t Send.” The mood starts to shift as she performs “Decode” followed by “Lie to Girls” with Sabrina playing acoustic guitar. With a background in acting she has such a strong ability to change the energy back and forth for whatever tone the song provides and it’s one of the reasons why she’s such a stellar performer. Act 1 ends on the iconic “Bed Chem” performance in the bedroom section of the set and the curtains close around the mattress giving her time for her first costume change.
Act 2 is where things start to heat up with a cocktail hour vibe titled “Sabrina After Dark.” At this point we take a trip back to song of her top songs off her last album “Emails I Can’t Send.” As someone who had to work a night shift and missed her last tour, I was so ecstatic she included these gems. You could feel the energy throughout the arena as she walked out in a black cat suit and performed “Feather,” “Fast Times” and “Read Your Mind.” The dancers were theatric and added such a high level of production to the show. Since this follows a nighttime of drinking and fun, Sabrina takes a moment to be one of the girls and step away from the fun to cry in the bathroom. During this she sang “Sharpest Tool” and “Opposite” and it truly brought tears to my eyes with how raw her emotions felt. Sometimes you need to get emotional during a night of fun, and that’s okay. After leaving the bathroom she goes straight into “Because I Liked a Boy,” and I can say wholeheartedly that I have never heard a crowd sing so loud during a song before. It felt so therapeutic for all of us in the crowd to sing at the top of our lungs with Sabrina. Act 2 ends at the front of the stage with Sabrina and her dancers sitting in the red heart chatting and gossiping in between her performances of “Coincidence,” her cover of “Mamma Mia,” and “Nonsense.” I think Act 2 was my favorite moment of the show because it felt like one giant sleepover at Sabrinas where we dance, laugh, cry, scream, etc. I know it was a healing moment for a lot of us in the crowd.
The 3rd and final act was short and most definitely sweet. Sabrina walked out in a two piece light pink sparkly top and long skirt to perform “Dumb & Poetic.” Sabrina is known for her beauty and I can’t begin to describe how angelic she looked entering Act 3.
This was a solo performance where she stood in a spotlight as stars twinkled in the night sky behind her. This girl has pipes and hearing this song live felt so much more intimate and beautiful. “Dumb & Poetic” is hands down one of my favorite songs on her new album and after hearing it live, I hope we get a live version released at some point. In order to transition from the long skirt to the short skirt, she does a cute and silly bit where she picks a fan from the crowd to arrest with pink fuzzy handcuffs. In Boston, we won with the first female arrest of the tour! Sabrina expressed the fan was too hot that her clothes couldn’t stay on as her skirt drops to the floor leading us into her performance of “Juno.” She followed this song with “Please Please Please,” and then pretended to end the show with “Don’t Smile.” We 100% were crying thinking it was over until Sabrina wakes everyone up offering a cup of espresso leading us into the final song and the encore “Espresso.”
Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet Tour overall felt like a huge Broadway production. The attention to detail throughout the show made me feel like I truly was watching a show on TV anticipating every scene. It’s no surprise Sabrina is the performer she is with the back ground she has, but my jaw was through the floor by the end of the show. Every member of this show left it all on the stage and they do it over and over again each night. I know getting seats at this tour feels close to impossible, but if you get the chance to go, I can promise it will be a show you’ll never forget. Sabrina is hands down one of the best performers I have ever seen and I will be saying please please please for a chance to see her again in the future.
Written By Emylee Herring
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