Review: Bruno Mars was magnificent in Charlotte. Then he overstayed by one song.
For a moment on Wednesday night, Bruno Mars seemed to have the crowd at Bank of America Stadium exactly where every pop star dreams of having it:
In full-body ecstasy, as the 40-year-old showman ripped through the feel-good anthem “Just the Way You Are” and the boogie-down-banger “Uptown Funk” in succession — two gleaming anthems so euphoric, so bulletproof, that played back-to-back in either order could have served as a triumphant closing statement.
With that, Mars could have sent 60,000-plus of his fans floating toward the parking lots on adrenaline and dopamine.
Instead, he closed an otherwise lavish, sweat-soaked, precision-engineered, two-hour spectacle with a choice that let a little more electricity out of the building than he likely intended, and gave thousands of fans their cue to start for the exits about five minutes prematurely.
Instead, he … well, more on that in a minute.
Let’s get the good stuff out of the way first. Because there was plenty of good stuff to enjoy, from practically the very beginning of the evening’s festivities.
The crowd gathered Wednesday, by the way, was not just more diverse than the one that filled the same stadium recently for country-music star Zach Bryan; it was strikingly more diverse. There were young teens and gray-haired couples, Latino families, Asian friend groups, mixed-race date-nighters, women in coordinated crimson dresses and red flowers in their hair honoring the tour’s request that fans wear red.
And while Mars was always going to be the main draw on this gorgeous night — mid-70s, wispy clouds, a faint breeze and just a touch of Carolina blue in the sky, one of those spring evenings that remind Charlotteans why they tolerate July — his lead opener threatened early on to steal the show.
To hear “opening DJ set” on paper is to picture the modern concert cliché: a man in headphones bouncing behind a laptop while shouting “Make some noise!” every 14 seconds. Instead, as DJ Pee .Wee, Anderson .Paak delivered one of the loosest and most genuinely entertaining warm-up sets in recent memory.
He emerged in a platinum tracksuit, bug-eyed white sunglasses and what’s become his trademark mushroom-bob wig, then danced his way through ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” Los Del Río’s “Macarena,” iconic rap hits like “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” and “Get Low,” and other indestructible party-floor staples with the commitment of a man who had been told the fate of the night depended entirely on him.
Midway through, he stripped into a bright red basketball uniform with “Pee .Wee” emblazoned over his loins. He rapped over live trumpet. He fired a T-shirt gun over the floor section with theatrical seriousness.
It was absurd. It was unpredictable.
And unlike many warmup acts, it accomplished the increasingly rare feat of legitimately warming the crowd up, genuinely improving the mood in the building and holding the attention of what appeared to be more than 90% of the audience.
By the time Mars appeared at 8:46 p.m. — after a pre-recorded video in which he knelt in a church pew and asked God to help him and his band The Hooligans give Charlotte “a show they’ll never forget” — his army of fans was primed.
They roared as a giant, extremely horizontal screen that served as a curtain of sorts was lifted. They shrieked as Mars emerged in silhouette, giant hair adding several apparent inches to his height, dressed in a red floral suit with gold detailing and a matching headband, framed by stained-glass church imagery. He held back on unleashing too big a hit at the outset, opening with three straight songs from his new album “The Romantic” (“Risk It All,” “Cha Cha Cha” and “On My Soul”), but they sang along as best they could anyway.
Within minutes, Mars was already drenched in sweat — not tasteful celebrity perspiration, but full-body, someone-get-this-man-a-Gatorade sweat. The kind of sweat that makes the dry cleaner stare at the garment and think, This one may be a lost cause.
The dude performs like rent is due.
He danced, slid and spun with the kind of skill most stars would kill to borrow from a very good backup dancer. He pounded bongos, shredded guitar, and played piano. He belted with astonishing force for two hours and six minutes, sounding almost improbably fresh deep into the show, even when you could see faint hints of exhaustion on his face, beneath the sweat.
Everything fed the retro-romantic/lowrider-soul aesthetic: the Catholic imagery; the mariachi-inspired horns; the cherry-red vintage convertible rolled onstage for a medley of old-school covers of soul songs (by The Chi-Lites, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, The Stylistics and Roger Troutman); the exaggerated loverman banter; the “Angel Baby Cam” spotlighting female fans in the audience; the way Mars repeatedly poses like he assumes every camera angle is his good side.
During the first half of the set, “I Just Might” and “That’s What I Like” were, unsurprisingly, performed with maximum panache and greeted by the crowd with maximum enthusiasm.
But perhaps the sleeper hit of the night was the Silk Sonic segment’s centerpiece, “Leave the Door Open.” It landed like the modern classic it is, with Mars and his pal .Paak mock-competing in a vocal duel that was deliciously, hilariously over-the-top.
Moments later, during “Marry You,” Mars’s tech team triggered a blast of bright white confetti that drifted through the stadium like romantic snowfall in a snow globe someone had just given a hearty shake. It was so feather-light it hovered in the air for several songs afterward, deep into an arresting late-show ballad medley that included “Die With a Smile,” delivered gorgeously at the piano, and his devastating “When I Was Your Man,” which brought the building to a near standstill.
By the time he launched into 2012 banger “Locked Out of Heaven” to signal the start of the show’s homestretch, his voice still possessed the kind of power lesser singers would have lost an hour earlier.
Yet if Mars’ execution is nearly impossible to criticize, his choices as curator of the evening are more debatable.
Several of Mars’ biggest songs were omitted entirely — most notably the stadium-sized melodrama of “Grenade” and the guaranteed dance-floor filler Cardi B collab “Finesse.” And while the soul covers section was musically sharp and visually stylish, it prompted noticeable side conversations and bathroom breaks, as did a good portion of the Silk Sonic mini-set.
On top of that, there were times when the show’s polish crossed over the line from exhilarating to over-managed.
Mars’ between-song banter, though charming, frequently sounded scripted down to the syllable. The production, though coolly choreographed, was so meticulously timed that at moments it resembled less a live concert than a Broadway musical about the concept of Bruno Mars.
The stage design was curious, too. Despite this being Mars’ first stadium tour, the production occasionally felt oddly under-scaled for the venue: no catwalk, no B-stage, limited roaming room, and enormous side video boards that obstructed views for fans seated at an angle. From certain side sections, the rear screen was nearly useless. For a performer whose gifts include intimacy, the setup sometimes did less than it should have to bring him physically closer to more of the stadium.
Still, Mars’s strengths mostly masked any weaknesses.
As he ripped through “Locked Out of Heaven” late in the set — fireworks exploding overhead, gold confetti pouring down, fans shout-singing every word along with him — the entire enterprise snapped into focus. It’s perhaps the thing Bruno Mars does as well if not slightly better than almost anyone alive: inspire joy.
After that came the equally pleasure-inducing “Just the Way You Are” and “Uptown Funk,” which again felt like a pitch-perfect way to cap a mostly magical night. The crowd thundered as the giant screen lowered back down like a curtain.
Then Bruno Mars made the rare mistake of staying one song too long.
He returned for an encore with his guitar and a reflective performance of his subdued new track “Dance With Me,” apparently feeling the need to give a final nod to romance and his latest album. By the first verse, hundreds were making their way towards the exits. By the third, it was probably thousands.
No one was upset. No one who had a great time up to that point woke up on Thursday complaining about Bruno Mars.
But it was a clear sign that while stars of Mars’ caliber can structure a show however they please, fans still know when they’ve already heard the ending.
Bruno Mars’s setlist
1. “Risk It All”
2. “Cha Cha Cha”
3. “On My Soul”
4. “24K Magic”
5. “Treasure”
6. “God Was Showing Off”
7. “I Just Might”
8. “Perm”
9. “Why You Wanna Fight?”
10. (Medley) “Oh Girl” / “I Miss You” / “You Are Everything” / “I Want to Be Your Man”
11. “That’s What I Like”
12. “Something Serious”
Silk Sonic mini-set:
13. “Blast Off”
14. “Silk Sonic Intro”
15. “777”
16. “Fly as Me”
17. “Smokin Out the Window”
18. “Leave the Door Open”
Back to Bruno:
19. “Marry You”
20. (Medley) “Die With a Smile” / “It Will Rain” / “Talking to the Moon” / “When I Was Your Man” / “Versace on the Floor” (instrumental)
21. “Locked Out of Heaven”
22. “Just the Way You Are”
23. “Uptown Funk”
Encore:
24. “Dance With Me”
