Review: Pink soars above the crowd in over-the-top hometown show at Citizens Bank Park

Nobody makes an entrance like Pink.

The first sighting of the singer (born Alecia Moore) at her Summer Carnival tour on Monday at Citizens Bank Park was on a video screen, as a Max Headroom-style cyber-Pink version of herself. She invited the crowd to “come with me and burn like the sun … close your eyes and SCREAM!”

The assembled 44,000-plus did. And when they looked up, there the Doylestown native was — 100 feet above the stage, looking out at her people from inside the mouth of the red-lipped tour logo.

Then she dove straight down, attached to elastic bands allowing her to do a few acrobatic flips along the way. Secure on stage, she then followed the command that turned her into a star 22 years ago: “Get the Party Started.”

That kicked off Pink’s portion of the opening show of the Summer Carnival’s two-night stand in Philly, in which the hometown hero was preceded by country-rock singer Brandi Carlile, Los Angeles rock band Grouplove, and DJ Kid Cut Up.

In the two hours that followed, Pink surveyed her hit-filled career, pushed her new Trustfall album, covered Bob Dylan, Sade, and Pat Benatar, and paid tribute to Sinead O’Connor by bringing Carlile on for a cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.” She was joined by her daughter Willow Sage Hart for “Cover Me in Sunshine.”

And with her enormously appealing, unfiltered, Philadelphia-loving personality, she tirelessly, joyfully, and impressively athletically entertained a probably 90% female crowd, many dressed in outfits also suitable for a Barbie screening.

On average, the crowd was older than the audiences Taylor Swift and Beyoncé drew across the street at Lincoln Financial Field earlier in this summer of stadium shows headlined by women.

A tip for guys headed to the Pink show: There’s a line (of women) to get into the men’s room. But don’t worry: There’s no wait for the urinals.

The show was inventively staged, with dancers riding in vehicles shaped like pink flamingos, Pink pulling off an aerial stunt on “Turbulence,” and hoofers donning lip-shaped headgear for “Blow Me (One Last Kiss).” The latter is a breakup song with a typically blunt Pink lyric — “I’ve had a s — day, you’ve had a s — day” — that somehow turns into an anthemic celebration, a resolution to not let the mundane stand in our way.

Earlier in the evening, Carlile — who fronted a eight-piece band that included a string quartet, plus longtime bandmates Phil and Tim Hanseroth — told the crowd to get ready for an evening of “loud women playing rock n’ roll.”

That was true for much of Carlile’s set, which featured covers of Radiohead’s “Creep” and a rearranged full-throttle take on Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” as a well as a sparkling three-part harmony version of her own “The Eye.”

Pink certainly rocked out too. “Just Like Fire” featured flash pots you could feel going off on either side of the stage, heading straight into a locomotive version of Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker.”

Guitarist Justin Terrico, bassist Eva Gardner, pianist Michael Chapman, and drummer (and Philadelphian) Brian Frasier-Moore were all given room to shine, and they all contributed to a genre-blended sound that is inimitably Pink’s.

In a name-that-tune segment, Chapman surprised Pink by playing the intro to a deep catalog song of hers, which she then tried to guess, rewarding herself with candy if she got it right. She correctly identified it as “True Love” and then ate Twizzlers on stage, before passing the package to fans.

She followed that by sitting at the piano herself and delivering a heartfelt rendition of Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love,” a choice she made, she said, because “I don’t write love songs. I write love-hate songs.”

That interlude included a message of love to Philly. “I am so proud to be from here,” she said, expressing specific admiration for Eagles and Phillies fans pole climbers. “We are one of a kind.”

Quiet moments mixed with the loud, allowing many opportunities for Pink to connect with not-canned stage patter, while digging deep into themes of grief and loss.

Before bringing Carlile out to duet in honor of O’Connor, who died in July, she remembered going to recording booths on the Ocean City boardwalk in the 1990s, where she would imagine herself a rock star and either sing Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All” or the Irish singer’s version of the Prince song.

Pink paid tribute to her father, Jim Moore, who died in 2021, with the hopeful, heaven-sent “When I Get There,” and said she had visited his grave for the first time on Sunday.

And before “Irrelevant,” a clap back at internet trolls, she wondered aloud about why she’s “such a fighter.” Partly because her father raised her that way and partly because of Philadelphia, she concluded: “It’s in the water here.”

The show was a sight to behold. After closing the main set with the euphoric “Never Not Gonna Dance Again,” Pink came back on stage for a lovely “Last Call,” a logical closer with its “seize-the-day-when-the-world’s-crumbling-around-you” sentiment.

That would have been a fine finale, but not by Pink’s standards. So she then harnessed herself in for “So What” and was catapulted high above the crowd, ziplining in a feat of astonishing Summer Carnival derring-do to make other stadium spectacles seem tame in comparison.

“I’m a rock star!” she sang, no longer having to imagine what couldn’t be more true.

(South Philly traffic prevented this critic from catching Grouplove, who went on at 6:45 p.m. Head out early to get the part started on time. Carlile went on at 7:30 p.m., and Pink followed at 9.)

“Get the Party Started”

“Raise Your Glass”

“Who Knew”

“Just Like a Pill”

“Try”

“What About Us”

“Turbulence”

“True Love”

“Make You Feel My Love”

“Nothing Compares 2 U” (with Brandi Carlile)

“Just Give Me a Reason”

“F**kin’ Perfect”

“Just Like Fire / Heartbreaker”

“Please Don’t Leave Me”

“Cover Me in Sunshine” (with Willow Sage Hart)

“Don’t Let Me Get Me”

“When I Get There”

“I Am Here”

“Irrelevant”

“No Ordinary Love”

“TRUSTFALL”

“Blow Me (One Last Kiss)”

“Runaway”

“Never Gonna Not Dance Again”

“Last Call”

“So What”

“Broken Horses”

“You and Me on the Rock”

“The Story”

“Right on Time”

“Creep”

“The Eye”

“Sinners, Saints and Fools”

“The Joke”

“Woodstock”