In addition to his Best Pop nomination for “Treat You Better” and his Song Of The Summer nod for “There’s Nothing Holding Me Back” (the latter of which he lost to Lil Uzi Vert’s “XO Tour Llif3”), fresh-faced heartthrob Shawn Mendes also just took the stage for a rendition of “There’s Nothing Holding Me Back,” and the charismatic performance was only enhanced from some minimal but striking stage design.
Armed with an acoustic guitar and a full band in front of stacks of blinking box TV sets, the enormity of the performance made the pop radio staple feel more like an arena rock anthem. It certainly drew the type of enthusiastic crowd reaction that rock bands of yesteryear used to get. In a recent interview, Mendes said that the song was inspired by a girl who doesn’t actually exist:
“I wrote the song actually about a girl in a movie script that I read. I was going to act in a movie and I fell in love with the girl character, and so I wrote a song about her.”
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