Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine Tour review: Cynthia Erivo joined her on stage and The O2 went Wicked
Seven years is a long time to stay away from a live stage, but it was easy to see why the wait had been worth it
By Callum Wells
Seven years is a long time to stay away from a live stage, but watching Ariana Grande take over London’s O2 Arena on the home stretch of her Eternal Sunshine Tour, it was easy to see why the wait had been worth it.
Coming right after her confirmation of an extended step back from public life, the night carried an added sense of occasion. But it was also a celebration of Grande’s return to music: her eighth studio album, petal, arrived in July as the follow-up to 2024’s Eternal Sunshine, marking a new chapter for a pop star who has spent the past few years increasingly pulled towards the world of film and musical theatre.
The show, her second in a run of 10, opened with cinematic interludes inspired by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, with Grande inside a memory-erasure lab before ultimately choosing to keep her past intact.
The true highlight of the evening arrived when Grande welcomed her Wicked co-star Cynthia Erivo out to the stage
When she emerged to the pulsing house beat of ‘yes, and?’, the fans’ screams were deafening. Vocally, Grande didn’t put a foot wrong, with her range was on full display throughout. But one of the night’s best moments came with almost no production at all.
For ‘eternal sunshine’, Grande stood alone at a looping station and built up her vocals layer by layer, creating her own backing choir in real time. With The O2 suddenly in silence, it was a chance to hear exactly what she can do without the dancers, costumes and giant screens around her.
The true highlight of the evening arrived when Grande welcomed her Wicked co-star Cynthia Erivo out to the stage for a surprise appearance. The crowd roared as the duo launched into a stunning rendition of ‘For Good’, followed by a medley of ‘Get Happy’ and ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’.
If this is where Grande steps back to catch her breath, she’s doing it at the absolute peak of her powers
The rest of the setlist moved smoothly between tight choreography on tracks like ‘positions’ and ‘the boy is mine’ and the arena-wide singalongs of ‘7 rings’.
By the time she floated above the arena floor during the finale of ‘supernatural’, taking in the deafening applause of 20,000 people, the feeling in the room was unanimous. If this is where Grande steps back to catch her breath, she’s doing it at the absolute peak of her powers.