Concert Photos: Pink / The Hives @ Wells Fargo Center 12/6
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Pure pop spectacle. These three words exemplify Pink's return to the Wells Fargo Center last Friday.
Pure pop spectacle. These three words exemplify Pink’s return to the Wells Fargo Center last Friday. The 18-song ride the sold out hometown crowd got was not one that could soon be forgotten. Playing a nearly identical setlist to the show in March at Wells Fargo certainly did not keep many away from a return visit since Pink showed her off her supreme skills of truly bringing the whole show to nearly every last audience member.
The show began before Pink even took the stage as the concert’s emcee Rubix Von Fuchenhurtz (as played by Jimmy Slonina) roamed the audience and was brining hijinks to wherever he could (as one photo suggests). After Rubix contextualized the evening by telling the crowd about “the truth about love” (the tour’s name and the title of Pink’s 2012 album), Pink emerged and began to reveal her own truth about her devotion to her art as she sprang through the air in trapeze fashion that was occasionally spiced up with some fireworks while also singing to a crowd wild for circus theatrics.
On a stage complete with stairs, lampposts, multiple video screens, trapdoors, and lighting abound, Pink was putting on a musical complete with a set of dancers and a band. Pink’s finest attribute — her pop song craft — was on grand display as she could take any metaphor about love and its related struggles and physically reinterpret it. During the song “Sober,” which features the phrases “comin’ down” and “spinnin’ ‘round” Pink and up to 5 other performers were raised high up and spun around in an acrobatic contraption. She also knows how to slow the show down, whether it is to play an instrument she does not so well (in this case a piano on “The Great Escape”) or come out as far as her stage takes her into the pit for an acoustic song with her lead guitarist Justin Derrico (“Who Knew”).
Fans showered Pink with love and multitudes of gifts and Pink beamed with gratitude. And how could Pink repay the whole audience for this? Well by flying through the audience to nearly every part of the crowd. In one of the most astounding live concert moments in recent memory, Pink ends her show with the song “So What,” during which she is tethered to wires that whip her throughout the audience for much of the song, while she is singing. One could not help but fly high after the show as well despite the rain and a lack of acrobatics. The Hives opened the show.
SETLIST
- Raise Your Glass
- Walk of Shame
- Just Like a Pill
- U + Ur Hand
- Leave Me Alone (I’m Lonely)
- Try
- Wicked Game (Chris Isaak cover)
- Just Give Me a Reason
- Trouble
- Are We All We Are
- Sober
- The Great Escape
- Who Knew
- F**kin’ Perfect
- Most Girls/There You Go/You Make Me Sick
- Slut Like You
- Blow Me (One Last Kiss)
ENCORE:
- So What
More photos by Chris Sikich at Countfeed.
