Los Angeles’s torrential downpour didn’t stop any girls from trotting through L.A. Live wearing platform boots and corsets for Sabrina Carpenter’s concert.
This Sunday, Sabrina performed her first of six sold-out shows at the Crypto.com Arena, just 10 minutes away from USC’s campus. These six shows mark the end of the second leg of her “Short N’ Sweet” Tour. Since last September, Carpenter’s been on the road touring her Grammy Award-winning album “Short N’ Sweet.” Her current music and brand blend hyper femininity, tongue-in-cheek misandry, and catchy melodies, making her a favorite musical artist among Gen Z listeners.
However, Carpenter has been actively releasing music for years before her caffeinated song of the summer, “Espresso,” catapulted her into mainstream success.
Although widely considered a “new pop girl,” Carpenter’s been in the public eye for over 11 years as both a singer and an actress. She broke out as Maya Hart on the TV show “Girl Meets World” from 2014 to 2017. Alongside being a co-leading lady for Disney Channel, she was signed to Disney’s label, Hollywood Records, where she released her debut single in 2014 and four albums, until she left in 2021 to sign with Island Records. Carpenter told Variety in an interview that her departure from Hollywood Records was due to her seeking more creative freedom within her music.
“Emails I Can’t Send Tour,” Carpenter’s first tour as an Island Records artist, was the building block of her new creative direction. Her humorous crowdwork and outfits went viral during this tour. All of this exposure, including a run opening for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, to Carpenter’s talent, potential and style gave her the perfect platform after all these years to release her sixth studio album, “Short N’ Sweet,” to an engaged audience that was waiting for her next move.
The audience was diverse, from teen girls to men well into adulthood. Right before the show, the lights dimmed and the curtain in front of the stage blasted her initials “SC” with a small heart in the corner.
Carpenter’s performances were nothing short of spectacular. She opened the show with her single “Taste,” an upbeat pop song that set the energy for the rest of the show. Nearly all of her performances featured a group of backup dancers who brought the descriptive storytelling of her songs to life in their choreography.
Carpenter sang the entirety of “Short N’ Sweet,” highlighting her vocal range from high-energy songs to crisp runs on her emotional tracks. She performed a handful of hits from her prior album, like “Feather,” as well as less well-known ballads like “Decode,” which she beautifully remixed into the end of her performance with “Lie to Girls.”
The set design felt like stepping into Carpenter’s world. It was built to look like a perfect dollhouse, including a bathroom where sitting on the toilet for some of her sadder songs worked in a way many wouldn’t have suspected. The stage visuals played a crucial role in setting the scene. Carpenter included many prefilmed interludes with a heavy 1950s aesthetic, featuring faux vintage advertisements for “ceiling fans” and “the sharpest tool,” both nods to her song lyrics.
At the opening of every show, Carpenter reveals a show-specific bedazzled bodysuit with a towel, and for this stop, it was a black corset embellished with “Hollywood,” a lace catsuit and a halter rhinestone two-piece skirt set. Cheekily enough, Carpenter does a bit for her song “Juno,” where she drops her skirt layer after picking someone in the crowd to get arrested for being so hot it “makes her clothes fall off.” This show, it was her opening act, Amber Mark.
Jasper Hewes, a student at Loyola Marymount University, is a longtime fan of Carpenter and has attended her tours for years. He’s attended seven stops on this tour, including Sunday’s show.
“Sabrina’s brand now is more true to herself than anything she’s ever done before,” Hewes said. “Her show really feels like a girls’ night in.”
Carpenter conversed and joked with the audience multiple times throughout the show. She expressed her gratitude to everyone in the audience for coming and acknowledged how everyone in the crowd was dressed similarly to her. Then Carpenter gets candid, referring to this tour as “the tour of [her] dreams.” She marveled at the fact that she’s playing six sold-out arena shows in LA and how far she’s come from playing small venues, thanks to the fans who have been there since the beginning or have just discovered her, helping contribute to her success.
Carpenter’s Short N’ Sweet tour transforms the perfect blend of her music, wit and style into a well-established brand persona that draws in her fans and solidifies her for long-lasting mainstream appeal.