Opening acts aren’t exactly seen as the highlight of the night when attending a concert, but opener Jordan McGraw had the crowd up and moving. The pop singer (who is also Dr. Phil’s son and singer and guitarist for Hundred Handed) kicked off the concert in a pink zebra-print cutoff as he strutted and danced on stage to bops such as “Flexible” and “Too Good.” The musician’s pop-rock crossover ended with a cover of Blink-182’s “What’s My Age Again?” and McGraw’s “We Should Still Be Friends,” which McGraw has yet to release a studio version of.
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In contrast with McGraw’s vibrant performance, Bebe Rexha appeared on stage wearing a black-and-silver tube top with a large lightning bolt, black pants, and black heels as the screen behind her featured black and white Rorschach-inspired mirror images. She sang a cover of Eminem and Rihanna’s “The Monster” and dedicated a rendition of Post Malone’s “Better Now” to her ex-boyfriend.
She and her two background dancers danced as she performed her hit song “I’m a Mess” and her song with David Guetta, “Hey Mama.” The pop star made a few audience members’ nights by bringing them on stage to sing and dance to another song Rexha is featured on, “Take Me Home” by Cash Cash. One of them thanked Rexha for being an inspiration to young women before exiting the stage. Before launching into her set’s final song “Meant To Be,” Rexha told the crowd: “I hope you all wake up and look in the mirror and say ‘I’m a bad a** b*tch!’”
As the lights went down, the stage went dark. You could feel the anticipation. Until now, the Jonas Brothers—made up of brothers Joe Jonas, Nick Jonas, and Kevin Jonas—hadn’t been on tour together since the Jonas Brothers World Tour in 2013 (the band later canceled many tour dates and later announced a band breakup) and hadn’t released music together since 2013. Many Jonas fans remember the quick rise and fall of the singles like “Poms Poms” and “First Time,” songs that were supposed to appear on their fifth studio album, V (which was never released).
But for the general public, it feels like the band hasn’t truly been together since their last studio album Lines, Vines, and Trying Times was released in 2009. For fans filling the seats of Enterprise Center, none of this mattered—the Jonas Brothers had finally returned. Cue the screaming.
Videos began playing on the stage’s screens, showing the history of the band. Even if you hadn’t followed the band on their journey, you could feel how far they’ve come. Then, the Jonas Brothers emerged from the rafters dressed in blue, orange, and green monochromatic suits. They descended from a floating stage onto the main stage. To start the show, Nick sang the first verse of “Rollercoaster,” a new song from the band’s Happiness Begins (also the name of their current tour) as colored smoke and carnival-style lights illuminated the stage.
Playing to fans new and old, the JoBros intertwined their new songs such as “Only Human” and “Cool” with such favorites from the band’s Disney Channel days as “SOS” and “That’s Just The Way We Roll.” Acknowledging the brothers’ in-between solo projects, Nick performed “Jealous,” a single from his solo record, and “Cake By The Ocean” from DNCE, a band Joe was the frontman for.
But what really sent a crowd of die-hard Jonas Brothers fans into a frenzy? “When You Look Me In The Eyes,” “Year 3000,” and snippets of “Gotta Find You” and “Play My Music,” from Camp Rock, a Disney Channel Original Movie the brothers starred in at the height of their fame. A performance of “Love Bug,” an acoustic heartfelt track from the album A Little Bit Longer, had almost every fan singing along before the Jonas Brothers exited the stage.
The concert ended with two big encores. The brothers jumped back on stage for “Burnin Up,” their arguably most famous single. It felt like fans sang these lyrics louder than those of other songs. The brothers ended their night with the single that launched them back into the spotlight after their six years apart, “Sucker.” It seems, after all of these years, we’re still a sucker for them, too.
