‘I’m coming up, so you’d better get the party started,” sings Pink, appearing high above the stage beneath a pair of giant lips and teeth. Then the trained gymnast somersaults on a bungee trapeze and bounces up to be held by dancers on yet more trapezes, to sing while hanging upside down. Further eye-popping acrobatics follow before she lands perfectly on the stage.
Such grand entrances are part of the reason why Pink – AKA Pennsylvania-born 43-year-old Alecia Moore – has become one of the biggest-selling pop stars in the world, but it’s not just about dazzling showmanship. Her music encompasses rock, pop, dance and at one point here a sort of highly percussive country hoedown. Her lyrics tackle relatable themes such as loneliness, childhood trauma, self-image, drugs, nostalgia and empowerment with feeling, while the bombastic but reassuring choruses make them perfect to fill vast spaces such as this one.
Declaring her delight to “see all you people” after the pandemic, her Summer Carnival show delivers bangers (Raise Your Glass, Just Like a Pill, etc), outlandish costumes, a pink grand piano, fireworks, steam or flame cannon, dancers doubling as a circus troupe or dressed as walking lips and even motorised pink flamingos. However, an acoustic section – mostly just Pink and guitarist Justin Derrico – shows what she can deliver without the trappings. Her voice is intimate but powerful, and when her 12-year-old daughter Willow Sage Hart joins her to beautifully sing Cover Me in Sunshine, the stadium erupts.
The two-hour show only really flags for Sade cover No Ordinary Love, which feels too moody here. Trustfall is epic and expansive. Irrelevant becomes a protest singalong (“Girls just wanna have rights, so why do we have to fight?”) and Never Gonna Not Dance Again is a colourful celebration. For So What, the glitter-clad singer straps on wires to jaw-droppingly somersault her way over almost 40,000 fans high above the stadium, all the while singing “So what, I’m still a rock star”. Which she most certainly is.
• At Stadium of Light, Sunderland, 10-11 June. Then touring.
