Ariana Grande review - glittering hits and powerhouse vocals in stunning return to stage
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- Ariana Grande opened a five-show Los Angeles run at Crypto.com Arena promoting her 2024 album Eternal Sunshine, her first tour engagement since 2019 after back-to-back Wicked films and a stint judging The Voice.
- The 23-song setlist leaned heavily on Eternal Sunshine tracks and opened with "Yes, And?" — a strutting, tabloid-pushing dismissal — with Grande unleashing multiple whistle notes from her four-octave range across the night.
- The show's conceptual thread wove in Eternal Sunshine's memory-erasure motif, including projected visuals of Grande confronting another version of herself hooked to a memory-clearing machine before trashing the device.
- Grande's performance mixed spectacle and intimacy, from bunny-ear-and-whip staging on a subversive take on "The Boy is Mine" to a solo looping-station moment layering her own vocals before launching into the title track's refrain "I don't care what people say."
- A live debut of "Hate That I Made You Love Me" from her forthcoming album Petal appeared late in the set, and the show closed with Grande being "beamed up" into light-strewn rafters.
- The review framed the concert as a reckoning with public grief — including the 2017 Manchester bombing that killed 22 fans and the death of ex-boyfriend Mac Miller — tied to the astrological concept of her Saturn return.
Why it matters: Grande's first tour in roughly six years doubles as a commercial re-entry after a stretch spent on film sets and reality TV, and the LA run — five shows at Crypto.com Arena — is the only chance for West Coast fans to see the Eternal Sunshine-era staging before any wider touring decision. The setlist's heavy lean on the 2024 album, plus a live debut from a forthcoming project (Petal), signals she's repositioning around new material rather than a nostalgia tour.
