Sabrina Carpenter: Emails I Can’t Send Tour Review!

By Kayla Harper

**all photos taken by my sister, Kaitie Harper, and myself.

“Three times in one night gave him a hat trick/put your hands up if you’re really that bitch/Calgary you do not rhyme with jack-shit.” -Carpenter’s unique nonsense outro for the Calgary fans.

One year ago today, my sister and I saw Sabrina Carpenter on her Emails I Can’t Send Tour stop in Calgary. She played at the Grey Eagle which is my favourite concert venue in the city because it has exceptional sound and is the perfect size for a general admissions concert.

We prepared for the show by making custom outfits to match the albums themes of heartbreak, which are pictured below.

When we arrived at the venue we decided to skip the merch lines so that we could get as close to the stage as we could. We ended up being about five rows back initially, but got closer after the openers set.

After the opener, we stayed in our spots, talking with the girls around us and listening to Carpenter’s superior pre-show playlist. It got especially loud when “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)” by Taylor Swift played. Imagine a large venue packed shoulder to shoulder, the majority of which is teenage girls, all there to scream their hearts out to breakup songs and “All Too Well” plays -it definitely fit the demographic.

When Carpenter started her set, gasps were heard around the room at her beauty. My sister and I couldn’t believe how pretty she was in person. After the piano-led intro, “Emails I Can’t Send”, Carpenter sprang into her more high-energy songs including “Read Your Mind” and “Feather” in which she danced around the stage, interacting with her band and the crowd.

The stage design was fitting to the album and intricate. A big light-up heart with a revolving mirror door was the main attraction, however, there was also a balcony on the left side and a bench and streetlight set-up on the right. Additionally the back part of the stage was raised, and everything was lined with pink and glitter. These components of the stage design made it so even people in the back could see Carpenter well during most of the show.

(photos of the entire stage from near the centre of the room, after the concert).

Carpenter was an exceptional performer with phenomenal stage presence. Somehow she connected with each person in the venue, relating to, and healing their personal experiences which they correlate with her songs as she sang them. Especially during the portion of the show in which Carpenter plays a game she coined, “unsabscribe.” At each show she picks someone in the crowd, giving them the mic and letting them share one of their personal heartbreak experiences. Afterwards, Carpenter plays a cover song related to what the fan is feeling, which she dedicates to them. At our show it happened to be “You’re So Vain” originally sung by Carly Simon, which my sister and I were very excited about!

Carpenter’s vocal abilities were not short of amazing, in fact her ability to sing whilst dancing around the stage, interacting with fans and playing various instruments such as the electric and acoustic guitar and bass, were beyond impressive. My sister and I found ourselves astounded by her talent being showcased in real-time in front of us multiple times throughout the show.

Carpenter’s moments talking with the crowd in-between song were genuine and wholesome, making each crowd on the tour feel unique and special. At one point even commenting on the loudness of the Calgary crowd compared to her previous shows, despite having to stop the show in the middle of “Sue Me” to accommodate fans who were fainting in the crowd due to the intensity and heat. After instructing security to give us more water, and making us space out from each other, talking to us like an elementary school teacher (out of respect, this was so cute and she handled it so well), she resumed the show.

The set-list did not disappoint, including nearly every song on Carpenter’s most recent album, Emails I Can’t Send, as well as some classic fan favourites from her previous albums such as, “Sue Me”, “Paris”, and “Honeymoon Fades”. The encore consisted of “Nonsense”, in which Carpenter did her signature outro (custom to each show), and “because I liked a boy”. Although, the red heart-shaped balloons didn’t fall as they were supposed to at the end of the song, it was still an exciting show and something I would gladly experience over and over again.