The Barclays Center was filled with short skirts, lipstick-stained kiss marks and screaming fans on Sept. 30, as Sabrina Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet Tour” held its second night in New York City. Thousands of fans came out to listen to songs from her albums: “emails i can’t send” and “Short n’ Sweet.” The setlist featured 21 songs, including a surprise song.
Before Carpenter hit the stage, Diana Ross’ iconic “I’m Coming Out” played, raising the crowd’s energy. A short video preceded the song, showing Carpenter in a bathtub as the narrator spoke to both Carpenter and the crowd. As excitement builds for her to hit the stage, the narrator asks her, “Hold on a moment, aren’t you forgetting something, what day is it?” Wrapped in a towel, Carpenter dashed onto the stage where she revealed a sparkling silver outfit. After this, she began the concert with her song “Taste.” If there’s one thing she knows how to do, it’s how to make quite an impression.
The concept for the tour is a television channel that changes shows throughout the night. The segments are titled “The Short n’ Sweet Show,” “Sabrina After Dark” and “Don’t Touch That Dial!” This unique concept allows for playfulness within the performances of the songs, as it correlates to the title of the shows. The stage was designed to complement this aesthetic, featuring a penthouse-inspired main stage connected to a heart-shaped catwalk.
After headline-touring four times, Carpenter’s experience has allowed her to go big for her first arena tour. For her song “Juno,” Carpenter leans into her dirty humor and picks one fan from the pit to receive fuzzy pink handcuffs before dedicating the song to them. Continuing this cheekiness, she does a different sex position each show, which gets the crowd pumped to see what she will do. Following her lead, the crowd screams the lyrics “I’m so fucking horny,” as everyone is as low as they can get on the ground. Per the request of Carpenter, the audience jumps up and dances after the line. The energy never went away, even halfway through the show.
One of the more exciting things about the tour is the surprise song or cover played at each show. So far, Carpenter has performed covers of ABBA, Madonna, Shania Twain and songs from Carpenter herself. Brooklyn got the first surprise song which was an original – “Busy Woman.” The song is part of the few secret songs hidden on her vinyl variations. The crowd went wild as this was its live debut. The lyrics were put on the screen for those who didn’t know it, allowing for a more united sing-along. She then transitioned into her hit “Nonsense;” after talking to the crowd and randomly saying “I think we need to talk about the economic and societal state of the world,” basically talking nonsense. She has finally ended the “nonsense outro” tradition after over a year of creating them. She makes up for this loss with all the other engaging bits in the show.
Carpenter’s stage presence and captivating tour kept the crowd entertained from start to finish. Her popularity doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon with these concerts. Her ability to connect and put on a show will keep people buying tickets and continue her already successful career.
