To attend a stop on Demi Lovato’s “It’s Not That Deep Tour,” is, in its barest essence, to witness a bold, brittle brand of introspection, and to be faced with an open attempt to reconcile the present with the radically different past.
In promotion of her ninth studio album, the singer recently embarked on an 18-show tour across North America.
As a two-time Grammy nominee with a four-octave vocal range and more than 30 million records sold, Lovato is clearly incredibly talented. She exhibits this across the show’s 90 minutes as she belts out crowd-pleasing pop hits and ballads alike with no sign of difficulty, besides the occasional water break.
A prominent figure in entertainment since Disney Channel’s 2008 hit “Camp Rock,” Lovato’s lengthy career has inspired the fanmade furor which characterizes a successful arena show. Across the 23-song setlist, any intimacy which may have been lost in the large venue is regained in the sense of connection with the swelling crowd.
During several of her larger hits, the audience singing along was nearly as loud as the singer. For the final chorus of “Skyscraper,” Lovato held her microphone away from her face, letting it pick up the gentle mix of thousands of people who likely grew up alongside her.
In the past, Lovato has publicly grappled with the effects of both substance abuse and eating disorders — struggles which contributed to a number of tabloid-maligned moments including calling out a yogurt company for branding its products as “sugar free” and singing to a ghost on her paranormal Peacock series “Unidentified With Demi Lovato.”
In 2018, she suffered a near-fatal overdose which led to her hospitalization and permanent health issues, including a partially disabling loss of vision.
Yet, her ninth album and current tour speak of recovery in a way which her past eras have not. Lovato married fellow musician Jordan Lutes last year, and several songs on the album, including “Say It,” a ballad during which the crowd glowed with phone lights, are dedicated to him. For a surprise song, dancers wheeled out a cart displaying outfits from each of her past albums, and an audience member picked a number out of a fishbowl to decide which album the surprise song would be from — it was “Get Back,” from “Don’t Forget.”
Healing from the pain and awkwardness of the past seems to not be so much an active, messy process at the forefront of Lovato’s mind, but something she has worked to achieve and now gets to enjoy.
And when Lovato belts her way through the bridge of “Heart Attack” or nails the swelling high notes of the final chorus of “Stone Cold,” it’s very difficult to imagine her as the same person whose struggles were the subject of so many pandemic-era thinkpieces and social media scourings.
The central color of the entire production is red: red hues dominate the stage lighting for most of the songs, red projections dance across the screen behind the performers, Lovato slips into a striking red dress for the third act. As Lovato coils and croons alongside her backup dancers, it’s easy to imagine her as resembling a phoenix rising from the ashes.
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