Sabrina Carpenter makes her debut in the dazzling Madison Square Garden

It’s Sunday evening in Manhattan and someone is working late. They stand about five feet tall and sit above a heart-shaped toilet in the most sensual Barbie Dreamhouse you’ve ever seen. Dressed in a lacy black jumpsuit that would unnerve Sandy Grease too bad, they’re about to sing about an ex who wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. But first the bathroom needs tidying up. They nonchalantly wipe the toilet before taking a seat. “Gross,– they mutter.

If you thought a pop star performing on stage during her Madison Square Garden debut was weird, then you haven’t been paying attention to Sabrina Carpenter. Along with Charli XCX and Chappell Roan, she played a key role in the pop girl summer of 2024. However, her album title did not become a pop culture phenomenon, and she did not emerge from an apple on stage, smoking a joint in a Statue of Liberty costume.

Instead, he’s a stealthy stunner, a charming, reserved weirdo who kissed an alien at the VMAs and whose hit song was a nonsensical nu-disco song about coffee. (“Espresso” had a huge impact, including the sweet relief it provided for baristas who for years had to endure customers pronouncing it “expresso.”) And the bathroom moment was just one of many crazy highlights at the Garden. She even addressed recent reports that one of her video sessions may have indirectly contributed to the scandals with Mayor Eric Adams. She did this after performing the song “Mamma Mia” by ABBA, which she decided to sing in a game of spin the bottle. Classic Sabrina stuff again. “Shit, what now?” she asked. “Should we talk about how I impeached the mayor?”

The evening was intended to celebrate Carpenter’s promotion from the role of Shawn Hunter on the Disney spinoff Girl meets world until just a few days ago when she released her new album Short and sweet went platinum. Selena Gomez was there, as were hundreds of teenage Sabrina lookalikes in miniskirts, platform shoes and bows in their hair. Was Very screaming and, ironically, the Garden’s guest services booth was temporarily out of earplugs. It’s officially fall, but as her friend Taylor Swift recently said, “Sabrina’s summer and may it last forever.”

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The secret ingredient Short and sweet the trip is an element of nostalgia. The Dreamhouse set also doubles as a vintage TV special, introducing her young fans to what the 1960s were like (you just know they’ll love the Miracles in the TV moment That’s what you do!). The scene is complete with cameras, a narrator, and fake commercials and segments that appear on screen between each act. Want a hot carpenter advertising sharp tools? You got it. The ad for those ceiling fans with “Please Please”? She has it too.

So it’s no surprise that the evening began with a video of Carpenter in a bubble bath, completely shocked as the narrator tells her Short and sweet the show begins right now. She runs onto the stage wrapped in a bath towel and appears between two shiny white stairs. She removes the towel, revealing a dazzling babydoll nightgown with garters. This is her fourth appearance on this tour, so we’ve seen a blue dress and a pink dress, but today we have a buttery color.

She started with spice Short and sweet opening “Taste” accompanied by dancers. There are rumors that the song is about a love triangle with Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, but all of that is secondary to her killer performance. She sat down at the shiny dressing table and stared into the mirror. “I feel like I’m watching a Broadway show,” said a girl behind me.

She tore through the album’s highlight “Good Graces” before dialing in “Up the Dolly” and picking up her acoustic guitar to play the gem “Lie to Girls” (if you think it’s a coincidence – no pun intended – that “9 to 5” played before the show, think again). Carpenter combined several genres Short and sweetand she effortlessly displays them all during this outing, wrapping them in one cohesive bow – most likely made of silk and strewn with diamonds.

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It’s almost impossible to read anything about Carpenter that doesn’t include the word “horny,” which she even printed on custom tights during her Sept. 25 performance in Toronto. She’s made it her entire brand, from her sexy tour theme to the numerous sex-positive lyrics in her songs. This brings us to “Bad Chem”, which she performs on a heart-shaped silk bed, her powerful vocals highlighting each line. “And I bet we both get there at the same time/And I bet the thermostat is set to six,” he sings. (When she ends with her figure and the dancer pretending to shed her clothes behind a curtain, I can’t imagine Mr. Feeny would approve.)

The endings of “Nonsense” are gone, but she still tore through her beloved 2022 tunes Emails I can’t sendincluding “Because I Liked a Boy,” her witty take on the media frenzy of Olivia Rodrigo and Joshua Bassett, and the breezy disco-pop hit “Feather” from the deluxe edition. It’s a video she shot at the now-infamous St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Brooklyn that may have played a role in the Adams investigation. She ended the song by joking, “I play MSG and you don’t!”

Carpenter cleverly introduced her band through the 1980s TV theme song Sabrina After Darkand their names appeared against the glittering backdrop of the city as she changed her outfit backstage. The host later summed up: “Sabrina serenaded us by the campfire! She sang us a song in the toilet! The party continues. But first, get your tissues ready, because we have some hot ballads up our sleeve!”

And we definitely needed those tissues, especially when she introduced “Dumb & Poetic” with an excerpt from a 1966 interview Leonard Cohen gave to the CBC in which the late icon compared poetry to the instructions on a can of shoe polish. It’s fitting that the song features a guy who picks up Cohen’s lyrics, but you better believe that Carpenter fans were really confused by the black and white music video and were probably wondering who this man was. From Dua Lipa Radical optimism to Kacey Musgraves The Deeper Wellthis year, the issue of well-being has been reflected in music, often to a disappointing degree. The antidote to this trend is “Dumb & Poetic,” in which Carpenter makes fun of men who meditate and eat mushrooms. We are happy to have her.

We already knew that Carpenter was really funny, but on this tour her sense of humor is more evident than ever on the tour, and it usually comes through during her on-stage banter. She joked about how delicious the water tastes in New York and jokingly told the audience, “Shut up!” when they refused to calm down. “I have to write this album Short and sweet just laughing my ass off with my friends,” she told the audience. “And now everyone is in the room laughing with their friends. Hopefully we can keep it up.”

Witnessing the arrival of a pop star is always a surreal moment, and making a debut at Madison Square Garden is always something that the artist and his devoted fans dream about. Dunkin’ Donuts, oddly enough, doesn’t sell donuts, but luckily there’s plenty of coffee. On the wall are artifacts from Marilyn Monroe’s 1962 birthday performance for JFK, which took place right here at the Garden. Which is perfect, considering Carpenter just wore Monroe’s hairstyle to the VMAs (while also wearing one of Madonna’s dresses).

If we have one complaint, it’s that this performance didn’t get its own unique cover – Carpenter already sang “Mamma Mia” at the tour opening in Columbus, and it’s a shame she didn’t take the opportunity to record a cover in New York… specific piece. But no matter, she emphasized how much this evening meant to her.

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“I am mesmerized by New York,” she said. “This is like home to me. The first time I played in New York, I was probably 16, and it was the Highline Ballroom. You all were NO There. I’ve always wanted to play Madison Square Garden my whole life, but I wasn’t sure if I would play in front of a sold-out crowd for the first time. Thank you very much.” The pleasure is ours.

Sabrina Carpenter’s set list from Madison Square Garden
“Taste”
“Good Graces”
“Slender Pickins”
“Tornado Warnings”
“Lie to the Girls”
“Decode”
“Bed Chemistry”
“Pen”
“Fast Times”
“Read Your Mind”
“The Sharpest Tool”
“Opposite”
“Because I Liked the Boy”
“Coincidence”
“Mamma Mia”
“Nonsense”
“Silly and Poetic”
“Juno”
“Please, Please, Please”
“Don’t Smile”
“Espresso”