Ariana Grande returned to touring after a six-and-a-half-year break, opening her Eternal Sunshine tour at Oakland Arena on June 6, per variety.com.
The 23-song set leaned heavily on her 2024 album Eternal Sunshine, with 11 tracks performed and closed with the singer lifted into a UFO-style light rig.
The Oakland show on June 6 marked Grande’s first tour date since December 2019. While the tour shares its name with the March 2024 album, the set also drew from 2021’s Positions, which had three songs featured.
Thank U, Next, Dangerous Woman and My Everything each contributed two tracks. Yours Truly and the forthcoming “Petal,” due July 31, were represented by one song apiece. Grande also performed “Rain on Me,” her duet with Lady Gaga, which appears on Gaga’s record. No tracks from 2018’s Sweetener were played.
The production used video interludes to cover costume changes. The segments referenced the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, showing Grande undergoing memory erasure and meeting a child version of herself in a lab setting.
Early portions of the concert focused on choreography with Grande’s dancers. Later, she performed solo on a ramp leading to a B-stage near the back of the arena floor. For the finale, “Supernatural,” she was raised into a bank of lights resembling a UFO. Production credits rolled on circular screens as “Ordinary Things” played over the PA.
The Eternal Sunshine tour is limited to 11 cities. After three nights in Oakland, Grande plays five shows in the Los Angeles area from June 13 to June 20 at Crypto Arena and Kia Forum. The North American leg ends August 6 in Chicago before a 10-night run at London’s O2 Arena. Grande has said she plans to focus on other projects, including acting, beyond music.
•Featured image: Ariana Grande/Will Heath/NBC via Getty Images
