{"id":300738,"date":"2026-07-20T16:10:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T16:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/300738\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T16:10:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T16:10:15","slug":"ariana-grande-eternal-sunshine-tour-in-brooklyn-new-york-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/300738\/","title":{"rendered":"Ariana Grande Eternal Sunshine Tour in Brooklyn, New York: Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen Ariana Grande<\/a> last played a headlining show at a New York arena, \u201cThank U, Next\u201d \u2014 the song that solidified her as a mainstay of pop culture\u2019s exosphere \u2014 was only a few months old. Seven years later, during the conclusion of a stellar five-night mini-residency at Brooklyn\u2019s Barclays Center (July 19), the three-time Grammy winner continued her recent lyrical tweaks to that Billboard Hot 100<\/a> No. 1 smash, adding yet another layer to the Eternal Sunshine<\/a> Tour<\/a>\u2019s celebration of real-time healing.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThank U, Next,\u201d Ariana\u2019s first of 10 Hot 100 chart-toppers, spawned from a perfect storm of cosmically tumultuous high-profile relationships and an impending musical imperial phase. Though its kiss-off anthem rooted in gratitude, that grounding is sometimes forgotten thanks to the juicy narrative of the song\u2019s dramatic arrival \u2014 and its racier successors \u201c7 rings\u201d and \u201cBreak Up With Your Girlfriend, I\u2019m Bored.\u201d When she edited the first verse from \u201cWrote some songs about Ricky, now I listen and laugh\u201d to \u201cWrote some songs about Ricky, we always find our way back\u201d at Sunday night\u2019s show, that in-the-moment update recentered the song\u2019s roots \u2014 and recontextualized them in the grander remembrance-over-erasure narrative that drives the Eternal Sunshine album and tour.<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, the Ricky in question is Ricky Alvarez, reportedly<\/a> Ariana\u2019s current boyfriend, whom she last dated over 10 years ago. Grande and Alvarez\u2019s professional relationship dates back to 2014, when he appeared as a backup dancer in her \u201cProblem\u201d music video <\/a>and remained a key part of her inner circle, joining her for years of promotional performances and her 2015 Honeymoon Tour<\/a>. The two notoriously made things donut shop-official<\/a> by Independence Day that same year. Though they ended things by summer \u201916, the pair remained friendly, with Alvarez joining Grande\u2019s 2018 Sweetener World Tour as a photographer and videographer. Last week (July 14), TMZ confirmed<\/a> the couple had rekindled their moonlit flame, following several increasingly positive \u201cThank U, Next\u201d lyric tweaks<\/a> dating back to \u201cwrote some songs about Ricky, and they still kinda slap\u201d at her June 24 show in Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith that Ricky line going from flippantly dismissive to heartwarmingly full-circle, Grande has, somewhat unintentionally, reaffirmed her tour\u2019s overall message of the innate beauty of a nonlinear healing process that hinges on the embraces of every past version of oneself. Simply having the courage to revisit a relationship a decade later, and surrendering to fate while still navigating its winding paths with agency sourced from the meticulous healing of various interlocked traumas, is proof that choosing not to repress or erase memories \u2014 as the tour interludes allude to \u2014 will always be the right choice. The last time Grande toured, she could barely get through \u201cThank U, Next\u201d without tears welling up in her eyes, and now, she\u2019s given the song a markedly more triumphant feel \u2014 especially with Sunday night\u2019s \u201cI\u2019ll be thanking my dad, we all grew from the drama\u201d lyric edit.<\/p>\n

\n\tSplit into five acts and interspersed with scenes from a short film co-directed by Grande and Christian Breslauer, the Eternal Sunshine Tour further expands the sci-fi-informed cinematic universe the pair established with 2024\u2019s \u201cWe Can\u2019t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)\u201d music<\/a> video and 2025\u2019s three-time MTV Video Music Award-winning Brighter Days Ahead short film. After beginning with an interlude that brings her to the Brighter Days Clinic, where she\u2019s undergoing a memory erasure procedure, Grande delivers an opening act anchored by her latter-day hits like \u201cYes, And?\u201d and \u201cPositions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore she launches into the second act \u2014 which boasts a subtle throughline of reclamation from her loop station rendition of \u201cEternal Sunshine\u201d (shoutout her YouTube cover days<\/a> and The Honeymoon Tour\u2019s Mi.Mu gloves<\/a>) to her recontextualization of Thank U, Next\u2019s No. 1 hits \u2014 Ariana falls. In a video interlude inspired by the \u201cHelping Hands\u201d sequence<\/a> in Labyrinth (1986), Ariana is sent hurtling towards her deepest, darkest memories, foreshadowing the heavy undertone of that act\u2019s setlist. That scene, which builds on the Twilight Zone-esque feel of the tour\u2019s aesthetics, also highlighted the careful, difficult work Ariana has done to merge every artistic evolution for an audience that\u2019s still disproportionately \u2014 and somewhat parasocially \u2014 attached to one specific iteration that just so happens to double as the most traumatic.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom the moment Grande was cast as G(a)linda the Good Witch opposite Cynthia Erivo\u2019s Elphaba Thropp in the Oscar- and Grammy-winning two-part Wicked film adaptations, fans and critics alike rushed to demarcate where Ariana the Pop Star diverged from Ariana the Actress. The Eternal Sunshine Tour rejects any such line in the sand, blending Ariana\u2019s musical and cinematic sensibilities and steeping that combination in the West End-ready water of her musical theater foundation. For every jaw-dropping opt-up and improvised harmony during \u201cDangerous Woman\u201d or \u201cPast Life,\u201d Grande made sure to continue her tribute to Michael Gondry\u2019s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind while also nodding to the blindingly white life-death limbo station from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s why it was so heartwarming to see her sly callbacks to Wicked sprinkled throughout the show \u2014 be it the friendship wave G(a)linda and Elphaba share in the movies or her \u201cIt\u2019s good to see us, isn\u2019t it?\u201d quip during her official tour welcome remarks. During the Saturday night show (July 18), Grande even referenced<\/a> the viral \u201cMadame Morrible, M.M.; flip it around, wicked witch!\u201d<\/a> meme while performing \u201cJust Like Magic.\u201d While the Wicked era netted Grande yet another Grammy and her first career Oscar nomination, both films\u2019 press cycles were also streaked with invasive dissections of her physical appearance, unfair characterizations of her and Erivo\u2019s friendship and good old-fashioned misogyny. There seemed to be a conscious effort to mar that moment \u2014 one she\u2019s been dreaming of since childhood \u2014 for Ariana. So it\u2019s been incredible to see her be able to maintain a healthy relationship with the films in the days since, even if simply via understated gestures.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for her relationship with her inner child, that\u2019s a dynamic Grande is far more interested in exploring throughout the Eternal Sunshine Tour. A younger version of the singer-songwriter appears throughout the interludes, most notably when she joins present-day Grande for a rewatch of The Wizard of Oz. The two Grandes watch Glinda the Good Witch tell Dorothy that she always had the power to return home within herself \u2014 but she first had to complete her literal and emotional journeys to accept that truth fully. And that\u2019s not just true of Grande; it also appears to be one of the grounding themes of her forthcoming Petal album, which is set to arrive on July 31 and will explore \u201csomething that is full of life and growing through the cracks of something cold and hard and challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore she closed the main show with Petal lead single \u201cHate That I Made You Love Me,\u201d Ariana clarified to the crowd, \u201cBut I\u2019m glad that I made you love me.\u201d The Eternal Sunshine Tour is a triumphant return to arena stages for Grande after a seven-year break. An absolutely astonishing vocal showcase \u2014\u00a0seriously, it was like the heavens touching Earth for the just-under-two hours she was onstage \u2014 the Eternal Sunshine Tour also packs intricate, story-driven stage design; at long last, complementary choreography, and an incredibly locked-in band. Above all, this tour is a live look at Ariana Grande coming back home to herself as a live performer and pop figure \u2014 whether that\u2019s through reclaiming her signature ponytail or drawing musical throughlines between her first and most recent studio albums, as she did with the back-to-back sequencing of \u201cHoneymoon Avenue\u201d and \u201cHampstead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGrande probably left at least 10-12 certified hits off the setlist (the entire Sweetener album was notably, but understandably, M.I.A.), but in prioritizing narrative, she elevated the Eternal Sunshine Tour into a real work of performance art \u2014 just look at her facial acting before she gets beamed up into the galaxy during the \u201cSupernatural\u201d finale. That focus on narrative consistency is also why she chose to visit versions of herself tied to transformative life eras (One Love Manchester, the Sweetener\/Thank U, Next whirlwind) in the Wizard of Oz interlude, as opposed to more recognizable looks like the Dangerous Woman latex bunny ears.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn both narrative and execution, the Eternal Sunshine Tour is leaps and bounds beyond any other show Ariana has mounted at the arena level. And if the teaser of her forthcoming Vista Vision-shot music video<\/a> for Petal\u2019s title track and second single is any indication \u2014 she\u2019s just beginning to scratch the surface.<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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