Sabrina Carpenter’s Electrifying emails i can’t send: Tour Review
By Matthew Landsman
November 4, 2022
Image Credit: Matthew Landsman for The Campus Trainer
On October 7th, I attended Sabrina Carpenter’s emails i can’t send tour at the Lincoln Theatre in Washington D.C. to promote her latest album emails i can’t send. Overall, the concert was amazing. Carpenter’s vocals were very stable, she didn’t mess up once and even interacted with the fans throughout the show.
She opened the show with the intro to her album, also titled “emails i can’t send,” with beautiful vocals while sitting at a piano behind a giant lit-up heart that flashed on beat with the songs on the album (a link to the video I took of this song: https://youtu.be/5p_qgVVK194). Most songs she sang were a part of her newer releases, mainly songs from her new album along with her Singular Act I and II albums.
Carpenter had a lot of control over her voice that makes it clear she is not new to the music scene; her voice and her lyrics have matured over the years, from when she first released music at 15 years old up to now. At the concert, she sang her first-ever song “Can’t Blame A Girl For Trying.” Compared to when its studio version first released in 2014, you could hear the growth in her voice as she sang the song sitting down with her guitarist Caleb Nelson.
Overall, I thought the setlist was very smart. She spaced out her many hits so that there was something for every Sabrina fan, whether you’re a casual listener or a mega-fan. Carpenter was very strategic with the set list, mixing sad and happy tracks together. For example, she did the very sad/ personal intro “emails i can’t send” then sang “bet u wanna” to lighten the mood. She did this so fans got the best of both worlds of Carpenter’s extensive catalog. You can tell just by watching her on stage that she was having the time of her life. She introduced each song with a story and explained why she made each song for example, she told the audience she was talking to a guy while they both got tornado warnings on their phone but ignored it because they only cared about each other in that moment which she then realized would be a great song to write titling the song “tornado warnings” singing it after the short introduction.
Earlier this year, Carpenter went viral on TikTok for her song “Nonsense,” for which she switches out its outro with a new freestyle, customized for each city. The most viral outro is from her recent show in Los Angeles, where she mentions her now-ex Joshua Bassett, the inspiration behind a few of the tracks on the emails i can’t send album.
Carpenter’s album centers around her relationship with Bassett, specifically during the time when fans of singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo, Bassett’s ex, attacked Carpenter after Rodrigo’s debut album “Sour,” also about Bassett, grew in popularity.
My favorite part of the concert was when she asked a person in the crowd who had gotten their heart broken to choose from three options: you're still mad at them, you still miss them and want to get back together,or you’re saying “screw this, onto the next.”
Depending on what the person chose, she would sing a cover to a song that corresponded to each option; the person at my show chose they were still mad at their ex, so Carpenter sang “Bust Your Windows” by Jazmine Sullivan, a song about being mad at an ex and literally busting the windows out of their car.
I went with two friends to the Sabrina Carpenter concert and they both had good things to say about the show.
“Sabrina Carpenter's show was amazing and I recommend going to see her if she’s ever in your area,” said sophomore biology major Sydney Channel. “Her vocals were on point and she sounded just like the tracks on the album. She did not disappoint.”
Sophomore criminology major Natalia Ortega said, “Sabrina Carpenter is an insanely talented performer. This was my second time seeing her live and the last time was about six years ago so to see her growth as an artist over the years was really incredible.
Overall, my friends and I had so much fun at the concert seeing Sabrina put on an amazing show. I am excited to continue to support whatever she has coming next and will definitely be going to see her again.
She opened the show with the intro to her album, also titled “emails i can’t send,” with beautiful vocals while sitting at a piano behind a giant lit-up heart that flashed on beat with the songs on the album (a link to the video I took of this song: https://youtu.be/5p_qgVVK194). Most songs she sang were a part of her newer releases, mainly songs from her new album along with her Singular Act I and II albums.
Carpenter had a lot of control over her voice that makes it clear she is not new to the music scene; her voice and her lyrics have matured over the years, from when she first released music at 15 years old up to now. At the concert, she sang her first-ever song “Can’t Blame A Girl For Trying.” Compared to when its studio version first released in 2014, you could hear the growth in her voice as she sang the song sitting down with her guitarist Caleb Nelson.
Overall, I thought the setlist was very smart. She spaced out her many hits so that there was something for every Sabrina fan, whether you’re a casual listener or a mega-fan. Carpenter was very strategic with the set list, mixing sad and happy tracks together. For example, she did the very sad/ personal intro “emails i can’t send” then sang “bet u wanna” to lighten the mood. She did this so fans got the best of both worlds of Carpenter’s extensive catalog. You can tell just by watching her on stage that she was having the time of her life. She introduced each song with a story and explained why she made each song for example, she told the audience she was talking to a guy while they both got tornado warnings on their phone but ignored it because they only cared about each other in that moment which she then realized would be a great song to write titling the song “tornado warnings” singing it after the short introduction.
Earlier this year, Carpenter went viral on TikTok for her song “Nonsense,” for which she switches out its outro with a new freestyle, customized for each city. The most viral outro is from her recent show in Los Angeles, where she mentions her now-ex Joshua Bassett, the inspiration behind a few of the tracks on the emails i can’t send album.
Carpenter’s album centers around her relationship with Bassett, specifically during the time when fans of singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo, Bassett’s ex, attacked Carpenter after Rodrigo’s debut album “Sour,” also about Bassett, grew in popularity.
My favorite part of the concert was when she asked a person in the crowd who had gotten their heart broken to choose from three options: you're still mad at them, you still miss them and want to get back together,or you’re saying “screw this, onto the next.”
Depending on what the person chose, she would sing a cover to a song that corresponded to each option; the person at my show chose they were still mad at their ex, so Carpenter sang “Bust Your Windows” by Jazmine Sullivan, a song about being mad at an ex and literally busting the windows out of their car.
I went with two friends to the Sabrina Carpenter concert and they both had good things to say about the show.
“Sabrina Carpenter's show was amazing and I recommend going to see her if she’s ever in your area,” said sophomore biology major Sydney Channel. “Her vocals were on point and she sounded just like the tracks on the album. She did not disappoint.”
Sophomore criminology major Natalia Ortega said, “Sabrina Carpenter is an insanely talented performer. This was my second time seeing her live and the last time was about six years ago so to see her growth as an artist over the years was really incredible.
Overall, my friends and I had so much fun at the concert seeing Sabrina put on an amazing show. I am excited to continue to support whatever she has coming next and will definitely be going to see her again.