One hates to prioritize one artform over another… really, one does. But after seeing Ariana Grande‘s opening show on her “Eternal Sunshine Tour” at the Oakland Arena Saturday night, it is tempting to want to send the multi-hyphenate talent a message, if you had the means to get one through, and it would go something like this: Dear Ariana… The world needs this, more than it needs “Focker In-Law 2.”
Not that it will necessarily come down to a choice, after all is said and sung and gone. But Grande did send a panic into her fandom late last year when she said, “I do know that I’m very excited to do this small tour, but I think it might not happen again for a long, long, long, long, long time. I’m going to give it my all and it’s going to be beautiful. I think that’s why I’m doing it because I’m like, ‘One last hurrah!’” She also reiterated that she’s not done with music at all, but when you say the word “long” five times in a row, it does foster anticipatory withdrawal hysteria. We might feel better if she assured us that she was going to take a break from touring — as if the six and a half years she just spent away from it was not long (x5) enough — so that she could go make a half-dozen musicals. The fact is, the galaxy would feel like an emptier place deprived of any of those octaves, let alone all four of them.
At the Oakland Arena, you could eat the show hungrily up like it was Shrove Tuesday before the famine, in which case the 105 minutes probably seemed much too short. Or you could wishfully take it in as if this were just one tour opening among many yet to come, in which case the “Eternal Sunshine Tour” goes down as a very satisfying meal, giving us at least enough to chew on without feeling the need to exhaustively explore every piece of the catalog. Although the night had the theatrical spotlight moments you expect out of a diva showcase, the tour feels like an easygoing romp, not any kind of dramatic send-off. She dabbed at her moist eyes, but near the beginning of the night, when she said how glad she was to see everyone again. Who knows? That feeling may stick before she has a chance to book too many more competing gigs.
The name of the tour does not lie: Nearly half of the 23 songs in the setlist — 11, to be exact — are from either her 2024 “Eternal Sunshine” album or the bonus section on the deluxe edition that followed a year later. What this is not is the “Sweetener Tour”… like, at all. I can say that “Sweetener” is my favorite album of Grande’s, and I’d say “God Is a Woman” is her all-around greatest song, and it didn’t occur to me until I was an hour out of the arena that there hadn’t been a trace of either in the show. (Well, a trace… there was a brief instrumental snippet of “God” as a segue.) It’s a testament to how good “Sunshine” was, and is, that it feels not just appropriate but necessary that the show was built around it. It is her most mature-feeling record, for starters — of course, any album that doesn’t include “34+35” is going to seem mature by comparison. But it includes within itself all the musical and emotional dynamics a concert could require, from the gleefully Madonna-esque arrogance of “Yes, And?,” which opened the show, to the actually vulnerable “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love),” which served as the cathartic climax in the concert’s penultimate spot.
The actual closer to the night, “Supernatural,” is spookier and not quite so bravura, but Grande had a reason for putting it in that position. As a group of dancers surrounded her on the B-stage, she was surreptitiously harnessed into a rig that carried her aloft, limp yet belting, into the heavens, or at least into what looked like a UFO hovering over the arena. It was an impressive effect, but what’s equally impressive to note is that it was the only effect, really.
There’s a fair amount of production design, as there would be for virtually any modern arena show, but the concert doesn’t feel like its been built around that. On the main stage, you get Gande and her band and dancers initially performing in what looks like a bombed-out house, and later on, by the time she is singing subtler, more balladic material like the sublime “Imperfect for You,” this two-story abode has taken on some greenery, as nature has moved in a little. But nothing in these sets is meant to be overly distracting from the performances. And it’s definitely not an Eras Tour-type show where every number is so high-concept that it seems like an excerpted Broadway production number. At heart and when feet hit the ground, this is a show about singing first, and dancing second; non-choreographic visual matters have obviously been fussed over but still land somewhere in a distant third. That seems like exactly the right balance.
The first stretch will definitely bring up some deja vu for anyone who caught the “Sweetener” tour. Early numbers have Grande mixing it up with her dancers, in mostly reddish-orangish mood lighting, without much use of single spotlights, so that you may have trouble picking her out from the ensemble at times. If you’re looking to get amazing singular video shots of Grande in some of those first few tunes, it might feel frustrating, but the atmosphere this approach sets up is wonderful: As much as Grande is a superstar, you get the sense with these full-cast routines that she really does love being part of an ensemble, if not a community… and the dim lighting makes it feel like you’ve eased into a very relaxed nightclub you wouldn’t mind spending a few yours in, after the hustle and bustle of the concourse.
And if its Grande lit up in bright white you want, don’t worry, that is coming; most of the show takes place on the long, long, long, long, long runway leading to the B-stage, and the designers are not about to artily underlight her when she’s in the middle of the crowd. As the concert goes on, we see less of those dancers until it’s pretty much a one-woman show for a while. Which is what you want when the setlist is edging toward the numbers that just call for a classic single-performer-at-Caesars approach — namely, the expected show stoppers “Dangerous Woman” (which does have her approached, as always, by a dangerous lead guitarist, in one of the few showcase moments for an instrumentalist) and “Honeymoon Avenue.”
You might be thinking about the shifts the show makes between warmth and coolness even before Grande performs “Warm,” which is a song that literally addresses the difference. The good news? She has a way of designing a show — constantly shifting color palettes in interesting ways, along with the music and emotions alternating between release and sweet reserve — so that heat and graceful breeziness constantly balance one another out. It’s a subtle, tricky art… one just as tricky as turning every number into a Broadway remake.
Some highlights: “Dandelion” remains a slowly funky standout from the “Eternal” deluxe; even if she didn’t bring along a live trumpet to reproduce the tune’s signature sound, the horn sample and the crimson lighting made the whole number feel like it was taking place in a fantasy roadhouse — “Sinners” without the blood. And the lighting wasn’t so dim that the audience could not see and cheer Grande extending a leg onto the sets second-floor railing… which seemed nearly impossible, since the platform shoes and boots she wears are so huge, they look like they each must weigh 10 pounds.
As if there weren’t enough girls and boys in the audience wearing bunny ears, the cat mask returned for “The Boy Is Mine,” as the color scheme turned a sexy blue, and a whip appeared for a tug of war between Grande and one of her male dancers. (The tug of war is about all it was used for; this is a pretty PG-rated show, if you’re not considering the lyrical F-bombs that would technically earn it an R.)
Katia Temkin
For “Eternal Sunshine,” Grande stood alone on the B-stage, asking the audience to be quiet while she stood at a keyboard bank and developed some vocal loops to sing over. (The acoustics at the arena rarely allowed anything she said to be heard clearly, but everyone did get the instruction about piping down for a second.) A nice, counterintuitively symbolic touch, having a series of vocal additions add up to a lusciously choral effect in a song that is about the consideration of erasure.
“Thank U, Next” was the most effective use of the choreography-as-community vibe, with Grande being joined on the pretty-in-pink A-stage with dancers on or around a couch, vibing from side to side. The crowd loudly chanted the part where Grande sings that “Ari” is her own new BFF, but the dancers established a counternarrative, that you need real friends to Netflix-and-chill with in any post-relationship moment. “Thank U, Next” is nobody’s idea of one of Grande’s greatest vocal showcases, yet the casual little run into her highest range that she did going into the song’s final chorus put the thrill in trill.
And hair highlights? It’s not picking low-hanging fruit to want to discuss Grande’s low-hanging ponytail, if just for a moment. In “7 Rings,” she had her hair in a bun, but one of her dancers undid it and thoroughly brushed it out so that, during the group runway strutting that ensued, the singer could recreate the famous “Wicked” hair toss, more than once. Unless it was undeliberate and that just comes naturally now, but we’d all like to think that hair flip was, in effect, the night’s sole “Wicked” cover.
Ariana Grande in performance at the Oakland Arena, June 6, 2026.
Katia Temkin
As much as the emphasis was on the newest material, Grande knows it’s worth dipping into the golden oldies to get a rave going with “Break Free.” But after that good, cheap thrill, there was more satisfaction to be had in the less effusive number that followed, “Twilight Zone,” which marked the one time Grande played to a camera for an entire song, as seen on the overhead screen.
(There are no truly “big” screens in this stage design, by the way; the camera coverage appears on a fairly thin strip that wraps around the top of the A-stage proscenium. If you were planning to spend the night staring at a 50-foot face on video all night, prepare to have your attention redirected… which is no chore, given the effective way this production plays to the entire bowl.)
The lowlight was a revival of her Lady Gaga duet, “Rain on Me,” with piped-in Gaga vocals. It’s hard to imagine there was more than a soul or two in the Oakland crowd who wouldn’t have rather gotten another actual solo Grande original in place of this not-overly-cherished collaboration; with or without a canned duet part, it’s ahead-scratcher of a choice, given what was left on the setlist’s cutting room floor.
But standout moments were plentiful, and it’s rare, at this level of superstar arena show, for every one of them to be strictly performance-based, regardless of all the calibrated bells and whistles. Best of all, perhaps, in the closing stretch, was “Hampstead,” one of several songs that made the extended “Sunshine” reissue a rare example of a deluxe edition where the bonus tracks outstrip much of the standard edition. Seated on a stool for the duration, Grande held the audience in her proverbial grip for several motionless minutes. That was maybe not so tough of a task, given that hers is a fan base that can name each tune in her set in one-and-a-half notes or less. But even a more demanding crowd would have agreed: This was one of the great voices, making an arena her homestead. So get your hands off her, Fockers.
Setlist for Ariana Grande at the Oakland Arena, June 6, 2026:
Yes, And?
Positions
Dandelion
The Boy Is Mine
Eternal Sunshine
Just Like Magic
Thank U, Next
7 Rings
Imperfect for You
Warm
Safety Net
One Last Time
Rain on Me
Break Free
Twilight Zone
Past Life
Dangerous Woman
Honeymoon Avenue
Hampstead
Into You
Hate That I Made You Love Me
We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)
Supernatural
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