Sabrina Carpenter performed the 11th stop of her raunchy tour to a sold-out United Center on Sunday.
Carpenter’s ’60s variety show-themed “Short n’ Sweet” was filled with humor and theatrics as she took the audience through the stage, decorated like a city penthouse.
To start off the show, she ran out on stage wrapped in a white bath towel, and slowly unveiled a sparkly pink bodysuit to sing the album’s opening track “Taste.”
Carpenter performed her next song, “Slim Pickins,” in front of a lit fireplace. Things really heated up when she moved into the bedroom to perform “Bed Chem.”
During the song, she performed with her dancers in a slumber party setting. As the song ended, she closed the sheer curtains of her bedroom, allowing the audience only to see the silhouette of her and a male dancer in the bed together.
The pop star had what many called her big break this summer when she released her latest album, but Carpenter has been in the public eye for a decade. She began her career as a Disney actress, starring in “Girl Meets World” as Maya Hart. Her sixth album “Short n’ Sweet” represents Carpenter’s evolution and maturity as an artist.
As Act Two began, the screens beside the stage displayed an elevator going up to the 69th floor. Carpenter came out in a sheer black bodysuit and a blue feather boa to perform her smash-hit “Feather” with a jazz twist, featuring dancers in suits and flapper-like outfits.
Carpenter then moved into the bathroom, stating that she “had to pee.” Carpenter closed herself into the bathroom, in which she jokingly took toilet paper to clean off the toilet seat, before sitting on it to perform “Sharpest Tool.”
For her next act, Carpenter moved down the runway and into a heart-shaped ’60s themed conversation pit. Surrounded by pillows and musicians, Carpenter performed the lively number “Coincidence.”
The dancers then brought out a “spin the bottle” circle, consisting of four numbered segments, each representing a cover song option. The bottle landed on the number one, which meant that Carpenter would perform “Mamma Mia” by ABBA.
Carpenter’s concerts became known for her famous “Nonsense” outro, in which she would create an outro on stage, changing the rhyming lyrics to include the name of the city where she was performing.
Purposefully ending this tradition for the Short n’ Sweet tour, at the end of “Nonsense,” she was lowered onto the stage. The side screens then glitched and read “technical difficulties.” Carpenter jokingly complained about it: “The one time my mic cuts out is during the nonsense outro. That’s the only reason anyone even came to the show.”
For the final costume change, Carpenter moved outside into a star-filled sky to perform “Dumb & Poetic” in a long, shimmering black and white two-piece costume. Her long skirt then fell off to reveal a shorter yet identical skirt underneath.
With this more revealing costume, she performed arguably her raunchiest song of all, “Juno,” in which she danced around and showed off her favorite “positions,” while arresting a man in the audience with a pair of “fuzzy pink handcuffs” for being “too hot.”
For the finale, Carpenter performed her hit song of the summer, “Espresso,” in which she carried a steaming cup of coffee onto the stage and woke up all of the dancers, who were pretending to be asleep. Red and white confetti fell down as she thanked the audience.
Carpenter’s unique ’60s-themed gimmicks and lighthearted audience interactions made for a spectacular show.
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