Ariana Grande does not tour often. So when she does, her fans, understandably, flip out.
The overall ticket buying experience for The Eternal Sunshine Tour echoed that of other big-name artists, with long online queues on Ticketmaster and resellers immediately snatching up the goods. Grande added an extra tour date to rectify this problem, but Ticketmaster’s gonna Ticketmaster.
Still, Grande’s fans endured the sacrifice. It’s not every day one of the best vocalists of our generation makes a stop at State Farm Arena, after all.
The last time Grande performed in Atlanta was in November of 2019 after the starlet added another global lap to her Sweetener World Tour. Since then, Grande’s world has monumentally changed, with her resume expanding to include two more albums, a wildly successful makeup line called r.e.m. beauty, and a couple of movie roles – most notably, Glinda in “Wicked” and “Wicked: For Good.” Grande has also experienced multiple whirlwinds in her personal life, including her short-lived marriage to ex-husband Dalton Gomez and subsequent relationship with “Wicked” co-star Ethan Slater (Slater and Grande have reportedly also ended things).
So yes, she’s got quite a lot of material to sing about. There are also some things she’d prefer to forget, as evidenced by her 2024 album (and the tour’s inspiration) “Eternal Sunshine,” which was heavily influenced by the 2004 film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” (Fun fact: Ari loves Jim Carrey!)
However, it wasn’t until the 2025 reissue of the album called “Eternal Sunshine: Brighter Days Ahead” and the accompanying short film that Grande fully expanded on its themes of trauma, memory, and closure. And that is the message that carries through the heart of this tour.
Grande’s show starts with a visual of the artist narrowly escaping a flooding house and then undergoing a memory erasure procedure at the “Brighter Days Ahead” clinic, which she originally references in the video for her song “We Can’t Be Friends.” Throughout the concert and in a number of video interludes, Grande revisits her past album cycles and experiences, including her first “Saturn Return” – presumably aligning to the dissolution of her marriage with Gomez – and even encounters her childhood self.
The setlist spans her seven-album history, plus “I Hate That I Made You Love Me,” the single from her upcoming album “Petal,” which releases July 31. Songs from “Eternal Sunshine” and the 2025 “Brighter Days Ahead” reissue understandably comprised the majority of Grande’s performance. In addition to songs like “We Can’t Be Friends” and “The Boy is Mine,” Grande also treated her fans to reissue-only cuts like “Hampstead” and “Twilight Zone.”
Notable omissions from the setlist included the entirety of 2018’s “Sweetener” – which, to be fair, was the focus of her last global tour – and select tracks from “Positions” romanticizing her now ex-husband. Sorry to anyone who hoped to hear “God Is a Woman” or “POV.”
In exchange, the set featured a long-awaited performance of “Rain on Me,” a dance anthem featuring Grande and Lady Gaga that would have invaded every nightclub if not for the COVID-19 pandemic (Grande and Gaga performed the song in 2020 while wearing masks at the MTV Video Music Awards). A new version of Grande’s early single “Honeymoon Avenue,” which hasn’t been on her setlist since the Honeymoon Tour in 2015, also made an appearance and perhaps drew the most enthusiastic crowd reaction of the night.
Grande never fails to deliver on a performance, whether it’s the choreography or the vocals – but especially the vocals. She belts and sings out in her signature whistle tone, never letting you forget just how much talent is up on that stage. Crowd favorites like “Dangerous Woman” and “One Last Time” received extra vocal flourish.
Grande runs a tight operation, starting promptly on time and delivering the entire concert within two hours. In the final interlude, she destroys the computer performing the memory-erasure procedure after realizing she doesn’t necessarily want to forget her past trauma. It’s a life lesson akin to the final chorus in “Thank U, Next”: “I’ve learned from the pain, I turned out amazing.”
Grande ends the show by ascending into a spaceship — and, of course, flexing her vocals while suspended in mid-air, an apt fit for a powerhouse performer. The Eternal Sunshine Tour’s Atlanta run may be over, but its impact has only just descended on those lucky enough to attend.
