Live: Pink in Indianapolis

When P!nk announced her 2018 North American tour in support of Beautiful Trauma, the shows sold out almost immediately and anyone who’s seen her show before knows exactly why. After a short DJ set, P!ink took the stage and played for almost two hours with a production that was as powerful as it was beautiful and inspiring. She opened the show with “Get This Party Started,” suspended above the stage, hanging from a giant chandelier, which shot pyro out the side. She jumped to and from it, coming down to the stage, joining her backup dancers before catapulting back up. When she played Indianapolis in 2013, she didn’t play a whole lot of older material and played just 18 songs. This time around she upped it to 21 songs and  threw in multiple classics (aforementioned opener along with “Just Like a Pill,” “I’m Not Dead” and more). She even did a ridiculously impressive cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” that would have made Dave Grohl proud. If one word summarizes P!ink’s energy in Indy, it’s joy. There wasn’t more than five minutes at a time that she wasn’t smiling and embracing fans as she ran across the extended stage. As she sang “Fucking Perfect,” a young fan in the crowd with a sign that mentioned she was trying to beat cancer- and not for the first time- caught P!nk’s eye. She got on her knees, reached down and grabbed the girl’s sign and wrote a very personal note on it, which stayed between the two of them. As P!nk got back up, she looked down and told the girl “Fuck cancer!” P!nk’s set can best be described as Circque Du Soleil meets Lady Gaga. Her backup dancers were more than just that- they were pure acrobats, elevating above the stage, while P!nk went up with them, hung below them and all without being harnessed in for the most part- the most impressive part besides that is that with all the acrobatics and stunts, she didn’t lip sync one bit, raising the bar for every pop singer in the business. To end the show, she launched across the arena in mid air, flying around Bankers Life Fieldhouse, touching the very top of the building and soaring around to every inch of the crowd to make sure everyone got to be up close and personal with her even just for a few seconds. When you sit back and digest P!nk’s show, there is so much to think about. From her video package about self-image and self-worth, telling the girls in the crowd that they are perfect and beautiful and to be comfortable in their own skin and not to let society tell them otherwise, to the gorgeous production and theatrics, P!nk truly brought inspiration, happiness and unity to Indianapolis with the Beautiful Trauma World Tour. -Reggie Edwards