“Beauty and the Beast” may have a tale as old as time at its core, but the first national tour of Disney’s stage adaptation in more than two decades proves the timeless classic can still dazzle modern audiences.

At the heart of the show’s success are the incredible performances of the ensemble cast, anchored by Kyra Belle Johnson as Belle (yes, that’s really her middle name) and Fergie Philippe as the Beast.

Philippe delivers a nuanced performance capturing the Beast’s full range of short-tempered outbursts fueled by repressed resentment to boyish wonder as he discovers the power of books and begins to feel the joy of human connection after years of closing himself off from the world.

Johnson leans into Belle’s strong-willed nature, which allows Stephen Mark Lukas as Gaston and Harry Francis as Lefou to shine as the show’s shallow villains.

In the book by Linda Woolverton, Belle is not a damsel in distress, but a curious young woman forging her own path and searching for something deeper, despite Gaston’s astonishment that anyone could have a dream bigger than being his wife.

Gaston’s befuddlement leads to one of the show’s more memorable numbers, with the ensemble using their beer mugs as instruments while singing about his imposing physique.

The castle’s servants all embody their roles perfectly, though Danny Gardner as Lumiere and Kathy Voytko as Mrs. Potts are two of the show’s standouts.

That’s thanks in part to creative costumes, designed by Ann Hould-Ward, who won a Tony Award for designing the original Broadway production’s costumes.

Lumiere’s hands are candlesticks that ignite with real flames, and steam pours out of the spout Mrs. Potts has for an arm.

But perhaps no costumes were more breathtaking than the ballroom attire worn by Belle and the Beast. Both Belle’s yellow ball gown and Beast’s navy-blue tailcoat shimmered with more specks of light than stars in the night sky.

Several audience members wore outfits resembling Belle’s iconic dress, a testament to the nostalgic space this story already holds for many families.

Luckily, this production is chock-full of Disney magic from the moment the lights go down, ensuring this version will fill new and familiar audiences alike with wonder.

The show opens with the Enchantress transforming from a feeble old lady into a towering figure and the prince transforming into his Beast form, all without ever leaving the audience’s sight, as original animated film cast member Angela Lansbury reads a narration warning that looks can be deceiving.

That’s just one example of the elaborate illusions designed by Jim Steinmeyer, who has previously worked with stage magicians like David Copperfield and Siegfried and Roy.

That background is clear when Mrs. Potts’ child, a young teacup named Chip who appears as a disembodied head, rolls around the stage in a teacart with a seemingly transparent bottom.

But the Beast’s transformation back into human form may have proven just a bit too difficult to convincingly disguise with a quick change visible to audiences.

While the transformation starts off impressive – with the Beast levitating and spinning in the air as projections on a scrim curtain surround him with flashes of colorful light – it ends by flashing bright LED lights aimed at the audience before cutting all lights for a few seconds, allowing him to remove the costume while the audience has been briefly blinded.

The scrim curtain is used tastefully throughout portions of the show, with projections designed by Darrel Maloney to simulate wolf attacks in the woods and lightning strikes on a stormy night.

But the set designed by Stanley Meyer relies a bit too heavily on backdrop videos created by Maloney that, at times, have an uncanny appearance resembling the cartoonish style of illustrations generated by artificial intelligence.

This is not an issue during scenes set in the castle, when the backdrops are primarily used for the night sky or dark interiors.

Yet even the scenes that are affected, set in the village, benefit from ingenious transitions in which the digital backdrops appear to “roll” on and off stage alongside the physical set pieces they are augmenting, exhibiting a level of attention to detail that Disney has come to be known for.

While some younger audience members grew restless during songs written for the stage by lyricists Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, the show’s major numbers are sure to delight with their elaborate choreography and extended orchestrations.

The showstopping performance of fan favorite “Be Our Guest,” complete with a tap dance routine and kaleidoscope choreography shot from above to highlight the synchronized leg movements of the dancers laying on the stage, sets a bar the rest of the show struggles to hit, earning thunderous applause and even getting a few audience members on their feet, though it’s not even the first act’s finale.

But Philippe’s beautiful performance of “If I Can’t Have Her” and Voytko’s touching performance of the show’s title track are so captivating that you remain momentarily immersed and almost forget about what became before.

Taken as a complete package, this production is guaranteed to make audiences fall in love with the show by the time the last enchanted rose petal falls.

Beauty and the Beast will play the Wharton Center in East Lansing through Oct. 19.

Pi Day came early this year at the Wharton Center.

Life of Pi, the 2023 stage adaptation of the equally lauded 2001 novel and 2012 film, roared into East Lansing for the first time March 11.

The story follows Pi Patel as he recounts the story of how he survived on a lifeboat for more than 200 days with a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and, of course, famed Bengal tiger Richard Parker.

The production is nothing short of a spectacle.

Each of those animals are embodied in the form of elaborate puppets, designed by Finn Caldwell and Nick Barnes, which are operated by puppeteers who exhibit superb dexterity and fluidity to give them a lifelike aura – when Richard Parker gets ready to pounce, you’ll be on the edge of your seat, nearly forgetting that there’s not an actual tiger on stage.

Smaller animals from the sky and the ocean are also present, with gorgeous flurries of butterflies fluttering around the stage at the start of the show and equally mesmerizing schools of fish gracefully hitting choreographed formations.

This all takes place in front of a simple yet impressively versatile set, designed by Tim Hatley, which is comprised of three walls, a bed and a lifeboat on a turntable. Hidden doors in the walls open and close as needed to turn the seemingly simple space into a bustling marketplace, a zoo, a hospital, a cargo ship or a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean as needed.

When Pi is recounting his story of being stuck at sea, projections help place the audience in the middle of the ocean with him.

Not limited to just providing water effects, the projections designed by Andrzej Goulding are also used to set the scene by complimenting the practical props and set pieces, like when time cards are displayed on the side of the boat and on papers picked up by the ensemble cast members as Pi discards them from his first aid kit, or when they use The Muppets’ technique of “traveling by map” to sail through the ocean in mere seconds.

Lighting designed by Tim Lutkin and Tim Deiling also helps to elevate the story and scenery.

Carefully lighting the puppets helps you to suspend your disbelief, while the puppeteers remain visible enough to admire their remarkable control and teamwork.

Flashes of light synced to climatic action sequences add to the dramatic effect and contribute to your racing heartrate.

Glowing rays of sunlight when deceased loved ones “visit” Pi while he is stranded at sea provides an easily understood visual representation of the afterlife, regardless of which of the three religions Pi starts the show dabbling in he happens to land on.

Pi’s story is one of faith, fear, hope and love. He does not answer which of the three religions audience members should view as the one true religion, and is even accepting of atheism; nor does he concretely answer exactly which story about what happened while he was stranded at sea is true.

Instead, Pi implores you to believe something, explaining that he does not understand agnostic people, who are choosing to not believe or disbelieve anything.

Whether the tale he tells is true, dramatized for illustrative purposes or a case of trauma distorting memories as a form of survival is up to each individual audience member’s interpretation.

But he highlights the importance of that storytelling, one way or another, arguing that fear is “life’s one true opponent” and that “you must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it” lest you repress it and allow it to continually gnaw away at you forever.

If it happens to be visually spectacular – representing numerous complex elements working perfectly in tandem to create a breathtaking environment – it becomes that much easier to believe.

Pi Day lasts all week in East Lansing, with “Life of Pi” continuing at the Wharton Center until March 16.

Michael Jackson has long been known as the King of Pop. Now, he can also be considered the king of jukebox musicals.

Set during rehearsals for Jackson’s “Dangerous” tour, with occasional flashbacks to other periods of his career, “MJ” is an electrifying run through Jackson’s extensive catalogue of hits and offers a brief glimpse into the mind of one of the biggest stars of all time – including the weight that comes with that status.

Jackson, channeling his inner John Hammond, continuously tells his team to spare no expense in preparing for the tour, even as they repeatedly express their concerns about the logistics of his increasingly extravagant demands.

It’s all part of Jackson’s perfectionism in his efforts to stay on top – he reminds his team at one point that “quality goes in before the name goes on it.”

“MJ” – the winner of four Tony Awards – lives up to those standards. While many jukebox musicals feel forced, “MJ” is in a league of its own.

The cast – many of whom are making their national tour debuts in “MJ” – was outstanding across the board. You could feel the energy shift in the room from the moment Jordan Markus first took the stage as Jackson. The younger cast members, who portrayed the Jackson 5, were supremely talented in their own right, demonstrating remarkable skill for such a young age.

Choreography by director Christopher Wheeldon makes the show’s team of 22 dancers – including the show’s newest cast member, Michaela Marfori – absolutely captivating.

There are more costumes in “MJ” than Taylor Swift would wear in a weekend on The Eras Tour, and Paul Tazewell’s costume design makes each of Jackson’s eras shine.

While projections often feel like they’re utilized as a cost-cutting measure, Peter Nigroni’s projection designs in “MJ” are used to complement physical set pieces, like when Jackson is fielding questions at a press conference and shards of broken glass display various tabloid style headlines about him, rather than replacing them. Nigroni has previously worked on Beetlejuice, one of the few other shows where the projections have enhanced the experience rather than cheapening it.

Some of the more memorable set designs from Derek McLane were on display during both performances of “Thriller” – the second of which is one of the highlights of the show, perfectly walking the line between tribute concert and narrative device.

But at the end of the day, “MJ” is a jukebox musical made “in special arrangement with the estate of Michael Jackson.”

That likely played a role in Lynn Nottage’s decision to have the show end in 1992 – one year before the first allegations of sexual abuse were lodged against Jackson.

Early in the show, a documentary filmmaker interviewing Jackson asks if audiences can truly separate art from artist.

It’s an interesting question that the show never fully grapples with – at least not in an intellectually honest way.

Jackson tells the filmmaker that he wants to keep the interview focused on his music, arguing that “it answers any questions you might have.”

And he discusses the cost of fame, noting that he can’t step foot outside of his house without it being work because everything he says or does will be thrown into the celebrity content machine for ravenous fans to consume.

But defending Jackson from the “strange stories making the rounds” that don’t matter – like whether he sleeps in a hyperbaric chamber – while ignoring the one that does, means the show never truly looks at the “Man in the Mirror.”

Without providing a compelling answer to their question of whether you can separate art from artist, the producers of “MJ” would have been better off assuming the thousands of people packing the auditorium each night, thunderously applauding from the moment Jackson takes the stage as the opening notes of “Beat It” hit, have already reached their own conclusion.

“MJ” plays the Wharton Center through Feb. 16.

Michigan State University is reconnecting with its roots.

Before there were Spartans in East Lansing, there were the Aggies; before there was Michigan State University, there was the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan – the first agricultural college in the United States.

It’s only fitting, then, that “Shucked” – the Tony Award-winning “farm-to-fable” musical – makes a stop in East Lansing on its first national tour.

In “Shucked,” rural Cob County is thrown into crisis when their cornfields suddenly fail.

Except, “Shucked” isn’t about corn. Not really.

In fact, its main appeal isn’t the plot, which mostly serves as a vehicle for one liners and puns so corny they at times make you wish you had Lulu’s corn liquor so strong “it could raise five kids on a teacher’s salary.” Instead, it’s the cast of heartfelt characters and the heaping servings of small-town charm that keep you buttered up.

And there’s a full cornucopia of talent on stage – including two original Broadway cast members.

That talent truly pops when Quinn Vanantwerp, who originated the role of Gordy – more of a con man than a corn man – on Broadway, performs the patter portion of “Corn (Reprise).”

Another memorable moment comes when Miki Abraham, who reprises her role as Lulu after playing her on Broadway, performs the power ballad “Independently Owned.”

New cast members like Jake Odmark, who plays Maizy’s original beau Beau, also have their moment: His performance of “Somebody Will” was another highlight of the show.

By the end of the show, it feels like the characters are your longtime friends – perfectly capturing the small-town, Midwest energy they were going for.

Even the puns that started out groanworthy become charming character traits – like when Peanut, played by Mike Nappi, offers his wisdom in sets of three observations, or when Storyteller 2, played by Tyler Joseph Ellis, points out the literal truth underlying various idioms.

But the show never quite does the characters justice after making you care about them. Most of the character growth happens in the first minutes of the show – by the end, little has changed, and some characters have arguably regressed back into their old habits.

Despite leaving some kernels unpopped, “Shucked” does something completely original, which is worth a few points by itself; it’s not based on the life of a founding father, or a major recording artist’s music catalog, or a classic film franchise with a conveniently timed sequel.

That, paired with the endearing characters and occasionally hilarious one liners, makes it worth taking a trip to visit Cob County and its residents for a few hours.

“Shucked” plays the Wharton Center through Jan. 26.

John Mellencamp may have been born in a small town, but he had no issue rocking a college town Tuesday night.

The concert at Michigan State University’s Wharton Center in East Lansing began at the scheduled start time of 8 pm – sort of.

That’s when the lights dimmed, and a sizzle reel of black-and-white film clips from tour sponsor Turner Classic Movies began playing.

Twenty minutes later, red sirens stationed in each corner of the auditorium began flashing and the projector screen rose, revealing a stage setup that made it appear as if the audience had been transported onto the set of one of those classic films. Four mannequins wearing classic movie costumes and spotlights resembling the ones used on classic film sets adorned the stage as Mellencamp launched into his first song of the evening, “John Cockers,” in front of a backdrop closely resembling the exterior set of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” a 1951 film featured in the preshow.

Beyond providing the visual aesthetic for the show, the carefully curated movie clips also set the tone for the evening. “You just live for yourself, and that makes you not fit to live with,” Paul Newman is scolded in 1963’s “Hud.” In a clip from 1961’s “The Misfits,” Clark Gable tells Marilyn Monroe, “Nothing can live unless something else dies.”

One of the most powerful moments of the evening came about halfway through, when Mellencamp, wearing a dark jumpsuit that wouldn’t appear out of place in an auto shop, performed an acoustic version of “The Eyes of Portland,” a song off his 2023 album Orpheus Descending, in which he implores that “your tears and prayers won’t help the homeless” and refers to “this land of plenty where nothing gets done.”

Those themes may have been lost on audience members, however, who began to shout for Mellencamp to take the stage after two of the movie clips had played. Some audience members complained that they came for a concert, not to be lectured by movie clips — a sign of the films’ timeless nature since attendees seemingly interpreted them as being applicable to modern politics. Even after the show, the clips were a hot topic of discussion among attendees in the elevator, who complained that they weren’t sure of the purpose of showing so many clips.

Once Mellencamp did take the stage, however, the audience was largely respectful, and the event went on without issue, though Mellencamp offered a few stories between songs, eliminating a source of tension with audience members at a St. Patrick’s Day show in the bordering state of Ohio days prior.

Now in his 70s, Mellencamp’s vocals have aged in a way that ultimately elevated the performance. His gravelly intonation during songs like “Longest Days,” also part of the acoustic set, in which he reflects that “life is short, even in its longest days,” reminds you that you have the privilege of being in the room with a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, upping the nostalgia factor for songs like “Small Town,” while adding to the grit and everyman appeal of songs like “Crumblin’ Down.”

While the final message projected on screen as the movie clips ended asked audiences to follow theater etiquette, that message thankfully managed to serve its purpose of stopping attendees from shouting at Mellencamp without preventing them from standing, dancing and singing along to hits like “Jack & Diane,” “Pink Houses” and “Hurts So Good” — so much so that Mellencamp hardly sang the choruses, mostly allowing the audience to take the lead, though it would have been nice to have the chorus in each song performed in full by Mellencamp at least once.

His radio hits are also rife with meaning — “The simple man, baby, pays for the thrills, the bills, the pills that kill,” he sings in “Pink Houses” before asking “Ain’t that America?” — but the audience seemed more receptive to that message, or at least more willing to overlook it, since it was coming from the narrator they spent years listening to.

Mellencamp will be back in Michigan on Sept. 15 for the Outlaw Music Festival, along with Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan. Tickets for the show start at $59 for general admission to the lawn at Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston.

Nothing can compare to seeing Taylor Swift’s epic, career-spanning Eras Tour in-person. Or at least, that’s what I thought after seeing her perform at Ford Field in June.

Then I saw Swift’s concert film in IMAX and began having second thoughts, which were fully verified upon watching The Eras Tour at home when it became available to rent before, finally, watching The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) on Disney+ earlier this month.

Having now seen the Eras Tour in every possible configuration, I can confidently say that there is no wrong way to experience the Eras Tour.

While it is true that I wouldn’t trade the experience of seeing Swift perform for three-and-a-half hours live, I gained a deeper appreciation for the spectacle and artistry of this once-in-a-lifetime tour with each new medium.

Attending the tour in person is an experience that will fill you with adrenaline. The audience’s applause when she first took the stage at Ford Field is the loudest I have ever heard a crowd, and it’s not particularly close, even after covering both of the Detroit Lions’ home playoff games in the same venue earlier this year.

But that also means you miss out on some of the intricate details that go into making this tour as special as it is, of which there are many (she is a self-proclaimed mastermind, after all).

If you are seated on the floor, for example, it is difficult to take in the sheer scale of the production; because the stage is so tall, you cannot see any of the graphics on the entirely-LED catwalk unless you’re up in the stands.

If you are up in the stands, you’re probably missing out on just how much of a show Swift’s band and dancers are putting on.

With choreography led by Mandy Moore, who Swift met through mutual friend Emma Stone after Moore worked on La La Land, it should come as no surprise that The Eras Tour is more a work of theatre than your typical concert.

That’s on full display during songs like “tolerate it,” from the album evermore, when Raphael Thomas plays the role of Swift’s ambivalent lover in a performance that makes the album track from Swift’s lowest-selling original album one of the show’s highlights. Seeing it in IMAX, Thomas’ careful facial expressions and quiet mannerisms are on full display in a way that you likely wouldn’t notice in a stadium unless you have Swift’s point-of-view from atop the kitchen table prop.

However, while the evermore era benefits most from being translated into a visual medium, there are curious editing choices during that and other eras.

When Swift sits down at her moss-covered piano for her standing-ovation earning performance of “champagne problems,” for example, there is a noticeable heat shimmer making the image slightly wavey due, presumably, to use of a very long focal length.

Swift’s speech is also shortened, presumably to get the film down to its runtime of two hours and 49 minutes. In doing so, however, they cut one of the most touching moments of the night, in which Swift explains that the song she just performed, “marjorie,” written about her late grandmother Marjorie Finlay, actually features backing vocals from Finlay, who, Swift explains, was herself an opera singer and “would have loved to perform” in stadiums. Thanks to the backing vocals each night Swift performs, as attendees turn on their cellphone flashlights each night, “she just did, really.”

During “willow,” another song with phenomenal choreography – utilizing glowing orange orbs that have, somewhat shockingly, never made it into an Errors Tour compilation by being dropped, and leaning into the allegations that Swift is practicing witchcraft – would have benefitted from holding a single head-on wide shot as Swift swishes her cape through the air and her dancers, glowing orbs in hand, recoil backwards as if she has just cast a spell on them. Instead, there are numerous cuts between tight shots of Swift and the dancers reacting.

Other editing choices mean the film misses some key elements that make the tour such a fun live experience.

During the first era of the night, when Swift instructs the audience “let me, see your, hands!” during her performance of “You Need To Calm Down” from the album Lover, the camera curiously stays focused on Swift and her dancers rather than pulling back for a wide shot showing the entire stadium swaying back and forth in sync.

Moments earlier, when the LED bracelets that were handed out at every show, but were beefed up for the three nights being filmed so that the effects would be more visible on camera, create the effect of a rainbow washing over the stadium after Swift declares that “shade never made anybody less gay,” there is no wide shot of the audience for that, either.

As the show begins to near its conclusion with the Midnights era, Swift builds a moment of audience interaction into the song “Anti-Hero,” pausing for the audience to take the first “hi” of the song’s final chorus and wave to her so that she can take the second, background “hi” and wave back. However, director Sam Wrench lingers on the crowd shot even as Swift returns the audience’s greetings.

Four songs later, during the second-to-last performance of the night in “Mastermind,” I was left desiring a shot replicating one shown on the stadium screens in which a direct overhead angle highlights the most complex choreography of the evening as her dancers swiftly glide across the stage, made to resemble a chess board, which seems chaotic at ground level but is revealed to be carefully, artfully organized only when you can see all the pieces working together as a whole.

Still, it’s a minor miracle that the entire film was shot without any cameras making an appearance and with relatively little focus on the giant screen behind her displaying the stadium’s camera feed.

While being translated to film generally elevated narrative elements of individual songs, some overarching storylines from the concert were missing in the theatrical version of the film.

When Swift burns the Lover house, for example, it is a three-song arc comprised of “The Archer,” “Wildest Dreams” and “Bad Blood.” Because the former two songs were not included in the theatrical release, we go from the Lover house being fully intact at the end of “Lover” to being a burnt-up shell that topples over in “Bad Blood.”

Thankfully, that is rectified in the Disney+ version of the film, which not only includes the songs that were deleted from the theatrical version of the film, but also edits them into chronological order rather than tacking them onto the end, as was the case when the film was available to rent on demand.

In the otherwise phenomenally edited reputation era, the cameras miss the visuals on screen during “Look What You Made Me Do” indicating that the glass boxes holding prisoner Swift’s dancers – adorned in costumes from each of her previous eras – have shattered as Swift explains why the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now with a piercing “Oh, cause she’s dead!” as she falls to her knees, setting them free for the song’s final chorus, which makes it a bit confusing when they show up at the foot of Swift’s elevated platform in the diamond center stage.

Watching the film at home, with a pair of headphones, however, gives you a completely new auditory experience. The drums are crunchy, the guitars are crisp and you’ll notice note changes you didn’t know existed.

This is particularly noticeable during “Look What You Made Me Do,” with the addition of an electric guitar that goes up when the rest of the song goes down, giving it a fresh twist that turns it into a full-on rock song. (If rumors of a live album don’t pan out, “Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor’s Version) (Live From TS The Eras Tour)” is a necessity on reputation (Taylor’s Version).)

During “Shake It Off,” from pop bible 1989, the addition of a jazzy saxophone to the bridge makes “this sick beat” even more dance-worthy.

While the note change in “the 1” has been a popular topic of discussion since the song was first added to the setlist, replacing “invisible string” after just a few shows, you will find when listening through headphones that there are several more powerful note changes throughout the show. One of the best is a prolonged “let the games begi-i-in” during “…Ready For It?”

Those powerful notes are in addition to quirky inflections that add a bit of fun to certain songs, making the live performances more unique.

That’s on display during songs like “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” when Swift squeaks during the second verse that her muse would find his peace of mind “with some indie record that’s MUCH cooler than mine.”

Ultimately, the tour’s greatest strength is that it’s clear how much fun everyone on stage – from Swift to her dancers and long-time band members – are having, and that joy is infectious whether you’re watching from the comfort of your home, with a bucket of popcorn in a movie theater, or in a stadium with 70,000 other fans.

“Let me tell you my secret little dream for this evening. These are songs that I have written about my life, or things I’ve felt at one point in time, whether I was a teenager, in my 20’s, or a couple years ago,” Swift says in her first monologue of the night. “But after tonight, when you hear these songs out and about in the world, my dream is that you’re going to think about tonight and the memories we made here together.”

We certainly will.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) is available now on Disney+. The Eras Tour is returning to North America this fall, including three shows in Indianapolis and six shows in Toronto.

While armies of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé fans argue over who had the better, bigger, more impactful stadium tour of 2023, a sleeper candidate emerged as the most technically impressive tour of the year.

While both Swift’s The Eras Tour and Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour are spectacles worthy of their respective icons’ statuses, P!nk takes the cake (or wheel of cheese, as it were) with her Summer Carnival Tour.

It’s clear from the moment P!nk first “gets the party started” that it won’t be any ordinary concert: She makes her entrance by appearing several feet above the stage, where a pair of lips featured at the top of the set open up to reveal her inside.

Touring in support of her ninth album, “Trustfall,” P!nk dives headfirst out of the rafters, performing numerous acrobatic stunts – including numerous flips and being held upside down by two of her dancers at least 20 feet above the stage – all while performing her impressive vocals without missing a beat (there’s no lip syncing here).

It sets a high bar for the rest of the show, but P!nk performs various other acrobatics throughout the show and somehow manages to create an even more impressive moment during the show’s finale that left the audience asking “Please Don’t Leave Me.”

Performing in baseball stadiums can present challenging view lines; the closer you are to the stage, the more of an angle you’re sitting at. That’s not an issue for P!nk, who made sure that everyone at Comerica Park – even those in the nosebleeds – had a front row seat.

“I’m coming to see you in the back,” she told the audience as her band began playing the last song of the night, “So What,” while two dancers strapped her into a harness.

As she reached the end of the first verse, it became clear what she meant: P!nk was suddenly hurtling through the air with the momentum of a slingshot, flipping around like an object floating through space until she was floating just a couple feet in front of the upper bowl audience members seated directly back from the stage. She then did several laps around the entire perimeter of the stadium, periodically lowering to the middle of the two side floor sections where she did handstands and other stunts, all while continuing to sing.

Even if you knew to expect the stunt from seeing videos on social media, nothing can prepare you to actually see P!nk flying through the air at you with your own eyes.

Another challenge – or feature, depending on how you view it – of stadium shows is their lack of intimacy.

When you’re on the level of Swift or Beyoncé, your every movement and word are broadcast to the world and heavily analyzed; and so, your every movement and word must be carefully planned. Attending most stadium tours can often be likened more to attending a movie or a Broadway musical than to concerts at smaller venues because the shows are almost entirely standardized from city to city with very little variation and few surprises from night to night.

This theoretically ensures that there are no winners or losers, since each crowd gets roughly the same experience, but it also means fewer opportunities for special moments that make your show feel unique or like you’re genuinely spending time with one of your favorite artists.

This wasn’t an issue for P!nk, who bantered with the audience about the number of insects swarming her piano under the stage lights, raising her kids (and the lack of privacy that can come with, sharing a story about them following her into the bathroom) and continuing to perform impressive aerial stunts at the age of 43 (something Swift, who has previously voiced her anxiety about the way “women in entertainment are discarded in an elephant graveyard by the time they’re 35,” would surely admire).

The longevity of P!nk’s career is clear throughout the show, with a setlist that is heavy on numerous hits but also features some deep cuts from her earlier albums and some album tracks from Trustfall.

In short, the entire tour – from the stunning choreography to the well-balanced setlist – could be described as “F**kin’ Perfect.”

If you missed the show at Comerica Park, P!nk is returning to Detroit in October for two back-to-back nights at the Little Caesars Arena as part of her “P!NK LIVE 2024 TOUR,” seemingly an unnamed continuation of her Trustfall Tour that ran concurrently with the Summer Carnival Tour. Additional stops are planned for Columbus on Oct. 9 and Milwaukee on Oct. 23.

She’s also bringing the Summer Carnival Tour to Chicago on Aug. 24 and Indianapolis on Oct. 12.

If you’re on the fence about whether it’s worth the trip to one of those cities, take it from us: You’ve got to get up and try.

This review originally appeared Aug. 18, 2023.

It’s been a long time coming, but Detroit was ready for it when Taylor Swift brought her massive Eras Tour to the city for a two-night run in June.

Few people could command a stadium so forcefully that 70,000 fans adoringly cheer when they ask for a tissue, but Swift has been experiencing a level of popularity not seen since the likes of The Beatles or Michael Jackson.

That energy was apparent from the moment Swift first appeared on stage, leading the stadium to erupt in thunderous applause so loud it nearly drowned out the music, which was blasting at a plenty high volume itself. The crowd roared even louder when Swift paused during “Cruel Summer,” the first full song on the setlist after she pops out from under the stage to the intro of “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince,” to encourage the audience to scream the bridge together – and scream it they did.

The crowd didn’t let up at any point during Swift’s career-spanning performance, which clocked in at just over three hours – though it sipped away like a bottle of wine and could have gone on for at least another hour without feeling like it was dragging on at all.

Fans participated in a number of Rocky Horror Picture Show-esque chants when their cue hit, whether it was telling Swift to “take us to church” during “Don’t Blame Me,” interjecting Kendrick Lamar’s “you forgive, you forget, but you never let it go” verse into “Bad Blood” or shouting “one, two, three, let’s go b***h” during “Delicate,” which Swift worked into her choreography this go around after the trend took off at her previous tour.

Even during the nightly surprise song segment, when Swift acoustically performs two songs from her catalogue that aren’t usually on the setlist, a majority of the audience seemed able to go verse for verse with Swift as they shouted the lyrics to “Haunted” and “I Almost Do” on night one and “All You Had To Do Was Stay” and “Breathe” on night two.

After Swift performed “champagne problems,” the fans showered her with their gratitude, applauding for more than two minutes straight each night.

Even as she performed through a cold, Swift delivered power notes and put on a spectacle as she masterfully weaved, seemingly effortlessly, through each of her eras, complete with accompanying costumes and props. My friends and I talked about being sore the next day from just attending the concert, and we had a chance to sit down and rest between each era; for Swift, she had to frantically make each of her quick changes behind the scenes before returning to the stage to continue dancing and singing.

Swift did occasionally cough into the microphone while she was between lines; however, this serves as proof that her microphone is, in fact, always on – no lip syncing here, even when she’s sick.

The biggest sonic issue had nothing to do with Swift performing through a cold, but rather the fact that her microphone periodically cut out during the second night’s performance. During her performance of “The Man,” the third song of the show, the audio was noticeably interrupted by a loud static noise before being restored a couple seconds later. Her vocals were briefly lost again at least two more times later in the show, though it was less noticeable without the static interruption. Still, Swift took her own advice to “Shake It Off,” continuing to perform through any technical difficulties without missing a beat.

Beyond commanding the stadium, Swift managed to make her performance feel intimate, even though her speaking portions were heavily rehearsed and largely identical from city to city. She utilized little mannerisms, such as mouthing “I need one” to audience members in one section after singing the lyrics “you can buy me a drink,” winking after singing “what a shame she’s f***ed in the head” during “champagne problems” and shaking her head after asking “do the girls back home touch you like I do?”

That’s especially impressive given the scale of this tour; it’s a spectacle from start to finish.

Swift is touring in support of four albums that she has not toured before as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic: 2019’s Lover, 2020’s folklore and evermore and 2022’s Midnights.

Her pandemic albums, folklore and evermore, were perhaps the most surprising in how well they translated into live performances. During the folklore section, Swift performs from atop a massive cabin prop before she descends to its lower levels later on. During the evermore era, Swift effortlessly transitions from performing a cult-like ceremony during “willow,” complete with glowing orbs as she seemingly casts spells at her dancers, to a heart-wrenching performance of “marjorie,” a song about her grandma. Swift explains that her grandma is sampled in the song, fulfilling her dream of performing for sold-out stadiums like Swift is doing now.

Since her last tour, Swift has also released re-recorded versions of three of her first six albums – Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version) and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) – with a fourth on the way this October in the form of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) as she works to reclaim her masters.

However, not every era was created equal, and there are a few ways the setlist could improve. Swift’s self-titled debut album, Taylor Swift, was left out entirely, a surprising decision for a tour meant to celebrate each of her eras.

Her third album, Speak Now, accounted for just one song on the setlist until a second song joined the mix on July 7, coinciding with the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). This second song creates its own double standard for fans who attended the first two-thirds of the U.S. leg of the tour, before she expanded the setlist.

And, curiously, almost none of the vault tracks – songs released for the first time with the re-recordings – made the cut, with the setlist instead favoring only her biggest radio hits from each of the previous albums, sometimes also at the expense of fan favorites that didn’t chart as highly. The one exception to this would be “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault),” an expanded version of the original song, which Swift delivers a powerful rendition of in one of the best moments of a show full of amazing moments.

However, there’s no denying that Swift is currently in “Style” as she experiences a massive popularity surge, and focusing on her greatest hits presents the perfect opportunity to welcome newer fans who may have overlooked her music in the past. This allows them to become caught up on previous tours they weren’t around for while also providing the chance for longtime fans to travel back through their memories together and relive their favorite eras of years past while also forming new memories of the four new eras that were added to the mix.

Ultimately, despite its minor imperfections, The Eras Tour is a resounding success, the kind of tour that comes around once in a career – and, possibly, once in a generation. From Swift’s greatest hits of years past to the new additions that helped catapult her to her current level of fame, the show is a spectacle that runs hit to hit from the moment it starts to the moment it ends.

Swift recently announced that The Eras Tour would be making a second run through North America in 2024, with nine stops near Michigan next November – three in Indianapolis and six in Toronto. While you may have to be a “Mastermind” to score tickets to the shows — dedicated Swifties will remember their battles with Ticketmaster for the first leg of the tour “All Too Well” — the experience is worth all the mountains you’ll move.