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Monday night, September 30, I had the opportunity to attend the Short N’ Sweet Tour. This is definitely one you want to attend. Sabrina got everyone on their feet instantly with Diana Ross’ song ‘I’m Coming Out’ which played throughout the speaker. Once the song finished, Sabrina had an introduction video that started as if you were in a 90’s cartoon. The video switches to her in a bathtub. Sabrina poses as if she’s the most beautiful girl in the world. Let’s face it, she is. The video has an audio of an announcer in the background. The screen goes up. Sabrina is running out in a towel. She takes off the towel and she’s wearing the most beautiful blue corset. I’m in awe of her. Once I managed to get over how amazing she looks, I looked around at the scenery on stage. A castle, she calls it. This so-called castle is white. It has long rounded stairs on each side of the stage. Another staircase is on the right with an extra platform. It is stunning!

Sabrina starts singing ‘Taste’ and the crowd wastes no time chanting the words back at her. Sabrina is dancing around the stage, bringing out a mirror, almost like she’s a professional and has the biggest smile. She finishes ‘Taste’ with the crowd giving her a huge applause. She starts ‘Good Graces’ on the stairs in the middle. She casually walks center stage while she continues singing up to the chorus. As the bridge of the song approaches, Sabrina calls on us. She wants us to chant with her, “I don’t give a fuck about you.” She keeps dancing while we chant. This time she walks up the side stairs and sings the verse and the chorus while giving a little wave. At the end of the song, she asks for the crowd to chant with her. “I don’t give a fuck about you,” she repeats this even louder than before.

This is when Sabrina starts talking and thanking the crowd for being with her today. She also gives thanks her opener, Amaarae who also gave an incredible performance. She asks the crowd to sing loud as she goes into Slim Pickins’ and the crowd goes crazy. She sits down by a makeshift fireplace on a fuzzy blanket. This is honestly one of my favorite songs and she has set the scene perfectly. After the song ends, there is a small set change. A guy in a suit takes a seat, and Sabrina sits down too. She surprises the crowd by singing a song from ‘Emails I Can’t Send’ and sings ‘Tornado Warnings.’ 

The stage changes again and Sabrina jumps into ‘Lie to Girls’. This time Sabrina is holding her guitar and standing at the microphone center stage right. At the top of her castle are her dancers swaying all together. After the first chorus, her dancers sit on the stairs. She goes up and leans over the railing. She continues singing. She then stuns the crowd with a shortened version of ‘Decode.’ She leaves the stage and an audio saying “Can’t sleep? We know” comes onto the screen with a phone number listed as 1-800-S-A-B-R-I-N-A. Next thing you know, the lights are coming up and Sabrina is lying in bed behind sheer curtains. Sabrina starts singing ‘Bed Chem’ and the curtains are flashing red. Eventually the curtains open, and she continues singing, never leaving the curtains. 

The curtain finally opens and what do you know, there’s been an outfit change. Sabrina is wearing a tight black body suit and starts singing a sultry version of ‘Feather’. She stuns the crowd by fanning herself out on the piano for the beginning of ‘Fast Times’. By the chorus, she is up and dancing. At the end of the song, just when you think it’s over, she drops to her knees. Then she lays down. She proceeds to stand up and walk center stage where there is a microphone and sings ‘Read your Mind’. Next thing you know, Sabrina says “I have to pee so bad. OMG.” and runs upstage. Fuzzy lights turn on, she wipes the toilet seat, sits down, and starts to sing ‘ Sharpest Tool’. It was honestly the craziest experience to happen at a concert. ‘Opposite’ came and went before you knew she was singing it. In the dim light, her image blurred on camera, yet her voice rang angelic.

All the stage lights suddenly came up, and Sabrina was walking center stage on the top platform. She starts leaning over the barrier singing ‘because I liked a boy’. If you looked around, every single phone light was up and it was the most beautiful place to be in. Knowing that Sabrina did this to a place like the Barclays Center was incredible. She ended up on her pink heart which expands 18 feet into the sky! Insane! 

Sabrina is about to sing another song! This time she wants all of her friends to come out and join her. They gather around the heart and sit beside her and Sabrina starts asking the crowd to start with her “Ooo-Naa-Naa-Na-Na-Na-Na.” She moves to each side of the room. Then she starts ‘Coincidence’ while sitting down in the middle of all her friends. Sabrina is holding a tambourine to add extra oomph and dances around. After this song, Sabrina plays spin the bottle. She assures everyone, “Don’t worry, I’m not kissing anybody,” she tells the crowd. The song the bottle lands on is what she’s going to sing. There are four songs on the wheel. Tonight we got song number four. This means Sabrina is going to sing the live debut of ‘Busy Woman’. After this, Sabrina goes into her classic, ‘Nonsense’. She does not do her typical outro. It would typically be different in every city she plays in. This time the song cuts off before the outro. A message says there have been technical difficulties. Then we get a recap of the show thus far. 

Sabrina’s back on stage, in another outfit! She’s wearing a beautiful sparkly halter gown. The curtains are also down, you can no longer see her castle. She starts with a great ballad, ‘Dumb & Poetic,’ with the whole crowd singing back. Sabrina wastes no time ripping off her dress to reveal a smaller version underneath. She then grabs handcuffs. She gives them to someone in the crowd. Sabrina asks the crowd to help her dedicate ‘Juno’ to him. She sits in a chair and crosses her legs. She starts singing. She never loses eye contact with the man she gave the handcuffs to. 

Sabrina comes back to center stage for ‘Please Please Please’ with such high energy. She hold the microphone out for everyone to sing the chorus back to her, we do and trust it’s loud. She continues on with ‘Don’t Smile’, a cute song to save for the end. This was perfect. The lyrics “Don’t smile because it’s happened, cry because it’s over” is a play on words of an old saying. It was over before I had even knew it began. With that, there was just one more song and Sabrina had already ran off the stage. Encore time! You know what that means! Outfit change and Espresso!!! You hear the crowd as soon as she sang the first note. There was so much energy floating throughout the room. This was beyond one the best shows I have ever been to.