Ariana Grande defies gravity at TD Garden on her ‘eternal sunshine’ tour
In case you’re wondering how long it took Ariana Grande to make a “Wicked” reference at her TD Garden show Thursday night, the answer is about four minutes.
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“It’s good to see us, isn’t it?” she purred from the catwalk, adapting a famous line from her “Wicked” character, Glinda, after performing the lippy show opener “yes, and?”
If you’ve seen one interview from the “Wicked” films’ press cycle, you’ve seen them all, and already know that Grande made Glinda her entire personality for two consecutive years. Her Instagram grid was forever blushing, filled with posts of her wearing pink Good Witch-style gowns, and she suddenly adopted princess-level poise during public appearances, folding her character’s primness into her manner of speaking.
But now that the pastel “Wicked” buzz has wrapped, Grande’s on tour for the first time in seven years, finally giving her 2024 album “eternal sunshine” its due, a feat that’s so delayed that she’s already on the cusp on releasing her next record, “petal.” Her first of three shows at TD Garden was a return to her greatest role — pop star — and aside from her opening quip, Grande kept her schtick PG (post-Glinda, that is).
Sure, there were times when her vocal flounce aligned with something her former character might coo, like her charm for manifesting good luck, “just like magic,” and the gentle “Hampstead,” which she performed perched on a stool at the end of the catwalk. But it’s tough to picture Glinda tearing into a song like “Dangerous Woman” the way Grande did Thursday night, dropping to her knees in the throes of stretching the steamy lyrics across her four-octave vocal range. Or, for that matter, thrashing a whip around during “the boy is mine,” wearing a Catwoman-style mask to match a menagerie of fans who donned similar lace cat ears and pleather rabbit ears, channeling looks from Grande’s 2010s wardrobe.
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Many of Grande’s others hallmarks were taken out of retirement, like her towering platform heels and torso-length ponytail, which she gave an exaggerated toss while bouncing to the the braggadocios trap-pop of “7 rings” (perhaps the only song to ever borrow from the catalogs of both the Notorious B.I.G. and Rodgers and Hammerstein). Her crystalline vocals buzzed every time she broke out a chart-topping dance floor gem, like “Break Free” and the Lady Gaga collab “Rain on Me.”
There’s something to be said about the power of embracing past selves during a tour for an album called “eternal sunshine,” a nod to the 2004 hybrid romance/sci-fi flick “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” about a couple wiping their memories of each other after a breakup. It’s no coincidence that Grande’s fielded two public splits in recent years, and that her tour’s interlude videos repeatedly referred to an ominous “procedure.” If Grande’s spirit or stamina were diminished compared to previous tours, as fans from other recent shows have opined online, she’s done a masterful job of repackaging any setback as performing with the slower, more intentional grace of a ballerina, gliding up and down a two-story prop home throughout the show.
But the final stunt trumped them all, as Grande ended the show with her song “supernatural” at the foot of the catwalk, grabbing hold of a pulley, and ascending into a circle of LED screens rigged to the ceiling, seemingly evaporating into the ether.
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It was this pop star’s twist on defying gravity.
ARIANA GRANDE
At TD Garden, Thursday. Also Saturday and Sunday
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