![\"Charlie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SUT-L-MUSIC-PUTH-0423-001.jpg\")
Charlie Puth opened his “Whatever’s Clever!” world tour at Viejas Arena on the campus of San Diego State University on Wednesday. (K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\nFresh from his acclaimed, admirably bombast-free Feb. 8 Super Bowl performance of the national anthem, Charlie Puth was a musician on a mission Wednesday night when he opened his 2026 \u201cWhatever\u2019s Clever!\u201d world tour at San Diego State University\u2019s Viejas Arena. Or, to be more precise, a man on two missions.<\/p>\n
The first was to promote his fourth and newest album. Its title is mirrored by the name of Puth\u2019s just-launched \u201cWhatever\u2019s Clever!\u201d tour. The extended concert trek, which next stops in Phoenix on Friday, will visit 22 countries before concluding in mid-November in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited to be here with all of you tonight. I\u2019ve wanted to do a tour like this for a long time,\u201d the 34-year-old singer, songwriter and keyboardist said before performing \u201cLA Girls,\u201d his fourth selection of the evening.<\/p>\n
He was referring to the scale and scope of his most extensive and ambitious tour to date. It features him leading a talent-rich two-woman, five-man band on a spare, clutter-free stage that featured a triangular LED screen at the rear to complement the screens at the left and the right.<\/p>\n
Charlie Puth opened his “Whatever’s Clever!” world tour at Viejas Arena on the campus of San Diego State University on Wednesday. (K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
Puth\u2019s crowd-pleasing two-hour, 19-song set featured no fewer than eight selections from his \u201cWhatever\u2019s Clever!\u201d album. That qualifies as a bold move in an era when legendary and up-and-coming artists alike often hesitate to perform even one or two songs from their latest albums \u2014 the better to avoid an exodus of attendees making a beeline for refreshments, restrooms or the merch booths.<\/p>\n
But Puth had more on his mind than simply promoting his accomplished new album and playing such sleek audience favorites as \u201cWe Don\u2019t Talk Anymore,\u201d \u201cCheating On You,\u201d Patient\u201d and \u201cSee You Again,\u201d the chart-topping 2015 hit that teamed him with rapper Wiz Khalifa and propelled the then-23-year-old Puth to stardom.<\/p>\n
Specifically, he wanted to advocate for the importance of creativity and art, and Puth did so several times during the concert.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want you to go home and write that song, paint that picture, ignore the noise and make your art,\u201d he said early on, a sentiment he repeated \u2014 word-for-word \u2014 later in the evening.<\/p>\n
Shortly before the end of the concert, Puth lamented the lack of national support and funding for the arts \u201cin this great land of ours.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the closest he came to making a political statement. But Puth\u2019s words took on an even greater resonance coming just a few days after San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria\u2019s proposal to slash the city\u2019s arts funding from $13.8 million to $2 million, a draconian cut that could have a devastating impact.<\/p>\n
Puth is himself a graduate of Boston\u2019s Berklee College of Music and an avowed jazz fan. He projects a wholesome image on stage and in his affectation-free songs. He seamlessly mixes elements of pop, R&B, gospel and more into songs that are unabashedly influenced by the work of Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, Sting, Babyface, Jackson Browne and two artists who guest on \u201cWhatever\u2019s Clever\u201d \u2014 Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald.<\/p>\n
The fact that Puth has described his new album as \u201cyacht rock 2026\u201d underscores his allegiance to an era that predates his birth in 1991 by more than a decade.<\/p>\n
His devotion to that time and to its artistic sensibilities makes him something of an anomaly in an age of Auto-Tuned vocals, computerized beats and fleeting, TikTok length musical snippets that pass as songs. That made the length of some of Puth\u2019s selections Wednesday seem almost subversive at times.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow Long,\u201d his peppy opening number, clocked in at six minutes. The slow-jam-inspired \u201cSideways\u201d was nine minutes, while \u201cSuffer,\u201d was even longer. So was \u201cSee You Again,\u201d the heartfelt ballad that provided the concert\u2019s emotional and musical highpoint. In concert, \u201cLove In Exile\u201d \u2014 the melancholic blCedric \u201cCJ\u201d Thompsonue-eyed-soul song Puth cowrote and performs on his new album with Loggins and McDonald \u2014 unexpectedly kick into high gear for a snappy drum solo by Cedric \u201cCJ\u201d Thompson.<\/p>\n
Moreover, Puth played several fleet keyboard solos that lasted two minutes or longer, including in two of his first three selections. Doing so at a mainstream pop concert for a largely young audience seemed almost subversive. Ditto the sophisticated modulations and subtle rhythmic shifts that underpin Puth\u2019s best songs. When Puth told the audience a song he was about to play had \u201cinteresting chord changes,\u201d it was an accurate statement, not a boast.<\/p>\n
While he is not a naturally charismatic front man, Puth is effective precisely because he doesn\u2019t dance or showboat. His voice and his music are unfailingly tasteful and pleasant, which is a key part of both his appeal and limitations. His silky ballads are uniformly thoughtful and well-constructed, but lack the pathos that would give them greater depth and dimension. The blues-drenched \u201cSuffer\u201d allowed him to emote in a way that most of his other songs did not, and he rose to the occasion on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Puth\u2019s strongest vocal attribute is his supple falsetto, which drew repeated cheers from the crowd. Yet, while he basked in the audience\u2019s applause, he seemed just as happy being one of the guys in the band, especially when Jaden Blakely Gray \u2014 one of his three backing singers \u2014 stepped to the fore and belted with electrifying\u00a0 power and soulfulness.<\/p>\n
The mix of songs from Puth\u2019s new and previous three albums was generally well-paced. He praised his talented band on stage as a whole, but failed to introduce its members, which included such standouts as drummer Thompson, guitarist Jan Ozveren and singers Gray, Lorea Turner and he lone-named Liiv. That gaffe that will likely be corrected by the time the tour gets to Phoenix on Friday\u00a0 for its second date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fresh from his acclaimed, admirably bombast-free Feb. 8 Super Bowl performance of the national anthem, Charlie Puth was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,6682,74,76,75,420],"class_list":{"0":"post-283026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-latest-headlines","9":"tag-music-and-concerts","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news","13":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}