Sabrina Carpenter at Madison Square Garden: Concert Review
“I’m looking for an answer in between the lines/ Lying to yourself if you think we’re fine,” Sabrina Carpenter sings, while seated demurely on a toilet.
It’s the opening night of her “Short n’ Sweet” tour’s “five fucking sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden!,” as she put it, and the toilet is in the bathroom portion of her giant stage set, which is like a combination of a 1970s TV show set and a Barbie doll dream house from the same era.
But more to the point here is the fact that Carpenter is earnestly singing a ballad, one of her signature comical takes on real-life romantic situations — in this case, “Sharpest Tool,” about being in love with a dumb guy, a follow-up on the theme of last year’s smash “Please Please Please” — while sitting on a toilet.
Make no mistake, it’s a very nice toilet — albeit with a heart-shaped lid with a sharp point at the end that could be problematic in real life — but how many of today’s top female pop stars could you imagine doing that? Beyonce, Taylor, Gaga and Dua are all self-aware and have senses of humor and can be self-deprecating, and Adele can veer into bathroom humor. But while it’s a small detail in a very big show, it’s a royal flush (sorry) of an example of the ways that Carpenter is going to familiar places in ways that others really haven’t before.
A classic All-American blue-eyed blonde, her image is as glamorous as that of any star, but she sings about relationships and sex in a refreshingly upfront and real-life way; in a related contrast, those songs are delivered in a glossy pop package that’s both hit-radio friendly and musically sophisticated — it’s no mistake that the two songs that played over the PA before she took the stage were the 1979 ABBA deep cut “If It Wasn’t for the Nights” and Diana Ross’ 1980 smash with Chic, “I’m Coming Out” (also a nod to her substantial LGBTQ following).
But her fans are largely young girls, most of whom are probably (hopefully) too young to have experienced what Carpenter is singing about in such an unfiltered way, but may find a sort of Judy Blume-esque big sister in those songs — and judging by many of the moms accompanying those young girls at the show, they approve and are fans as well (although it was a surreal moment to witness her leading thousands of middle-school aged girls in shouting “I’m so fucking horny!” during “Juno”).
The show, which is largely the same production as last year’s tour, has all the bells and whistles of a 2025 pop star’s arena extravaganza, familiar to regular concertgoers but awesome for a young person attending their first concert, which a significant percentage of the audience probably was. The vintage-TV theme runs through the entire show as Carpenter, accompanied by 11 lithe dancers and a four-piece band, performs from different areas of the set (a balcony, staircases, walk-in closet, in front of a vanity and a fireplace).
She rocked four different outfits (all of them leggy and sparkly) and doled out her big hits strategically, focusing overwhelmingly on her two most recent albums, “Short n’ Sweet” and “Man’s Best Friend,” along with a few from her 2022 effort “Emails I Can’t Send” (which, although it was actually her fourth album, was her debut as a post-Disney, adult artist). She opened with “Taste,” sprinkled in “Manchild,” “Feather,” “Bed Chem” (complete with an overheard video segment while she luxuriated on the bed in the set’s bedroom) and closed, of course, with “Espresso” amid a giant confetti shower.
The concert was interspersed with funny mock-‘70s TV commercials displayed on the video screens (such as a fake power-tool ad with the line “The Sharpest Tool, trusted by carpenters everywhere”), complete with a fake “Technical Difficulties” breakdown and, curiously, a clip from an early interview with Leonard Cohen where, at the end of a lengthy exchange, he essentially compares writing poetry to shining the shoes of one’s soul. While it’s a clever, visually powerful and effective conceit — sort of a supersized version of the vintage Playboy magazines she ooh’ed and ah’ed at during her interview with Variety last year — the references are obviously decades past the memories of her audience and even many of their parents’. But that’s just another factor of the Sabrina brand that doesn’t necessarily have to add up.
Yet the show’s most vivid moments came from Carpenter’s connection with the audience. There are a lot of familiar tropes — several “You having a good time, New York City?”s, “On the count of three, let me see you all jump!”s and “Let’s see which side of the arena can scream louder!” competitions; there was also a “surprise song” segment where she spun a bottle, it landed on a number and she and the group performed the new album’s country-esque “Go-Go Juice” for the first time. But she also spent a lot of time talking to the audience — saying initially that “I’ve been one of you” for the past for years that she’s lived in New York, before restating, “Actually, I’ve tried to be one of you.” She’s an ace at singling out different groups in the audience — the group of young girls shrieked with delight as she seemed to be waving and smiling directly at them — and, perhaps most on point, at the end of the show she said, “I want to take a second to commend all of the amazing outfits I see,” thanking and complimenting the audience — many of whom were sporting Carpenteresque stacked heels, sparkles and lipstick kisses on their shoulders — at length for turning up and turning out.
From Cher to Donna Summer, from Deborah Harry to Madonna to Beyonce and beyond, female singers have pushed the envelope on how much sex talk is too much, with all the inevitable pearl-clutching from conservative quarters. While opinions inevitably vary, Carpenter is walking the fine line between irreverence and responsibility with a knowing wink and an all-important sense of humor.
