How to translate TikTok to the concert hall? That’s the operating question behind PinkPantheress’s An Evening With… PinkPantheress tour. The Gen-Z queen bee’s career was built, snippet by snippet, on the app, and the audience at Monday night’s second of two sold-out shows at the Anthem in Washington, D.C., bore out that origin story.
Giddy, fresh-faced fans were festooned in plaid, blue, and red that matched Pink’s wardrobe, cheekily nodding to both her U.K. home and early-2000s girly-pop-punk garb. They know all of the TikTok routines, and near the end of the show, the artist stopped to pay respects to their skills, while irreverently putting to rest questions about their exact order and rhythm.
That Pink first came to prominence through a screen was also reflected in the various monitors on stage behind her, displaying images of her riding public transportation and awash in cultural ephemera from a bygone era. The uncanniness of the more artificial and cutesy imagery, like glimmering ocean waves, drew into focus the various lines Pink walks in her work: between resourceful homage and shameless recycling, between trendy, blasé music you can groove to and storybook melodrama.
Pink appeared in a pair of big white angel wings to sing from a heavenly perch during “Angel,” from the Barbie soundtrack. Yet that was the least impactful of a series of playful outfits. At one point she donned (and quickly removed) a plaid tutu, and humorously trotted out in a one-sided legging—one limb bare and the other bright blue. She didn’t call too much attention to these rapid-fire costume changes, but they signaled the work of a skillful performer.
If all of this suggests that the music was sidelined for spectacle and persona, that’s not far off. Tracks like “Illegal,” from 2025’s Fancy That, and an encore performance of her 2021 single “Attracted to You” felt rushed. The recorded version of the latter, of course, clocks in at just one minute and change, which includes its lengthy fade-in. But it highlighted the conundrum of bringing this blippy, internet-based work to the real world.
In large part, though, Pink and her team’s efforts to export and magnify her catalog worked. The tour unexpectedly featured a live drummer, who really can’t afford to miss a beat of the quicksilver garage and drum ‘n’ bass percussion that’s at the core of much of the artist’s output. He supercharged the songs while adding a layer of texture to, for instance, “Another Life,” that would have been missing had Pink just fallen back on a drum machine or prerecorded track.
Both “Another Life” and “Blue,” from 2023’s underrated Heaven Knows, were relayed with real emotional power. The show unfolded as a breathless 28-song revue, marked by exhilarating and punchy renditions of tracks like “Just for Me” and “Stars.” Pink’s older cuts, made pre-fame on her laptop, predictably played less well in a big, echo-y room, but she’s a charming performer who knows how to work a crowd with sticky hooks, brazen beats, and effortless charisma. As modern as PinkPantheress’s whole deal is, that’s quite a classic package.
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