It was tough to tell which line at the Sabrina Carpenter concert was going where. They twisted around the Moody Center in Austin, Texas, like a tangle of cords. That could be for the box office… or maybe it’s for general admission? The only line that I knew for sure was the longest one: the merch line.
If you didn’t have a ticket for The Short N’ Sweet Tour (it’s a hot ticket), you could understand the vibe of the show just by looking at the official merchandise being sold outside the venue. There was “short” and “sweet” socks; lots of pleasing pinks and blues; a hoodie with red lipstick kisses; a shirt with “God Bless Your Dad’s Genetics” written on it; and a hat with “I’m Working Late” on the front and “Cause I’m A Singer” on the back. The more daring items were a “69” soccer jersey and a shirt that spelled out “ca-ma-ra-de-rie” with the pronunciation “kǝm-rit-on-me.” Go ahead. Say it out loud. If the goal was to convey the flirty aesthetic of multi-platinum singles “Espresso,” “Please Please Please,” and “Taste,” the merch was a success.
As was the concert itself. The Short N’ Sweet Tour was one of the best pop shows I’ve ever been to. It begins with a video of Carpenter reacting to the camera while taking a bubble bath, like Margot Robbie in The Big Short, before an old-school announcer tells her the show is starting. She takes the stage in a bath towel, which gets dropped to the floor, revealing a sparkly bodysuit underneath. That winking charm remains throughout the entirety of the well-paced 90-minute set, which is part co-ed slumber party at Megan Draper’s dream New York City studio apartment, part television show. There are vintage cameras emblazoned with “SC” on either side of the stage; the band is introduced through late night talk show-style credits; and there are retro commercials to distract the 16,000-strong crowd during brief set breaks.
But when Carpenter is on stage, all eyes are on her. She’s very good at Being A Pop Star. Her practiced banter sounds off the cuff, and there’s a playful ease to the way she carries herself; she’s able to channel both innocent Sandy and “tell me about it, stud” Sandra Dee. Even (especially?) when she’s singing the Jack Antonoff-produced “Sharpest Tool” while sitting on a heart-shaped toilet.
As for the accusations that she’s lip-syncing: she’s not. In person, Carpenter has an appealing twang to her voice reminiscent of Kacey Musgraves in the Pageant Material era (she even referenced Kacey’s “I didn’t say f*cking yee”). It served her well for the spin-the-bottle cover of Dolly Parton’s “9 To 5,” which the parents in the audience happily sang along to with their tween-age kids. (The mom in front of me looked over nervously at her young daughter every time Carpenter told a dirty joke or made a double entendre or lost an item of clothing, which meant she was looking over a lot.)
The encore, naturally, was “Espresso,” the Billboard-charting hit that provided the opportunity for Carpenter to sell out arenas, and likely soon, stadiums. But the concert’s true ending was the song before it. During “Don’t Smile,” the “credits” for the concert were projected on stage. The names of the wardrobe, audio, set construction departments — they were all there, scrolling on the screen behind the performers. It’s really cool.
The final credit before Carpenter left the stage to prepare for “Espresso”: tour merchandise (shout out to Joe H and Chris V). This clever acknowledgment shows how much merch means to the Short N’ Sweet experience, and not just for the obvious financial impact. Sabrina Carpenter is working late ‘cause she’s a singer, but so is everyone putting fans in Sabrina Carpenter shirts and “69” jerseys. They did — as Carpenter herself would probably put it — a nice job.
