P!nk 5/29/18

Pink Ticket

So P!nk’s world tour in support of her newest album Beautiful Trauma is definitely not the typical concert I would go to but Ingrid chose to take me with one of the two tickets I got her as a Christmas present this last year. P!nk just played San Diego in September for Kaaboo but Ingrid missed half of her set because Muse was playing at the same time.

I got a taste of what a P!nk show was all about when I saw her Grammy performance but that was not even the tip of the iceberg. This show was downright fantastic. I recognized some of the songs but an overwhelming visual aspect to the performance took the music to another level. The custom stage allowed her and her many dancers to spread out with choreographed routines. Two moving walkways in the middle section of the outstretched stage moved in opposite directions as she high fived people closest to her in the audience. A giant blowup of Eminem took center stage as she sang “Revenge.”

The real spectacle was when people were literally flying around the arena on some sort of pulley system. This rivaled a Cirque du Soleil show with the aerial acrobatics and is just not something seen in a live music setting. At one point during the show P!nk was dangling from one of her dancer’s arms high above the crowd without a harness on or a safety net below. High drama as she hit the high notes. The best rope pulley flying was reserved for the last song in her skin-tight glitter suit.

Even as impressive as the acrobatics were, they were nothing compared to the fact that P!nk was actually singing during all of this. Her voice sounded great and never wavered even as she was twisting and turning through the air. Her backing band was a traditional rock guitarist, bassist and drummer setup but she also had two backup singers and two keyboard players. This afforded her the ability to play “Just A Girl” by No Doubt and a delightfully surprising faithful rendition of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana.

In an age of no talent ass clowns that lip sync and fake their way through it was refreshing to see an artist that clearly cares about giving her fans something special and real. P!nk did not just set the bar, she is the bar.

SETLIST: Get the Party Started, Beautiful Trauma, Just Like a Pill, Who Knew, Revenge, Funhouse/Just a Girl, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Secrets, Try, Just Give Me a Reason, I’m Not Dead, Just Like Fire, What About Us, For Now, Barbies, I Am Here, Fuckin’ Perfect, Raise Your Glass, Blow Me (One Last Kiss), So What, Glitter in the Air