After a six-and-a-half-year layoff between tours, Ariana Grande has made a long-awaited return to the concert stage, with her “Eternal Sunshine” tour kicking off at the Oakland Arena Saturday night. Variety was on hand for the show and has the full setlist, below; a full review will follow on Sunday..
The name of the tour was an easy tip-off that the show would focus largely on material from the “Eternal Sunshine” album, released in March 2024, and the deluxe edition that followed in March 2025). But she’s actually released two new studio albums since she wrapped up her last tour in December 2019, 2021’s “Positions” being the other, so there was plenty of material to draw upon that hadn’t previously been a part of any Grande road show.
As for the forthcoming “Petal” album, that isn’t due till July 31, so for now fans are only getting “Hate That I Made You Love Me,” the first single, which came out May 29. Grande’s tour continues through Sept. 1, so it remains to be seen whether she might introduce more songs from “Petal” into the setlist for the last lap of the tour.
As it turned out, “Grande has largely moved on from the “”Eternal Sunshine” responsible for a hardy 11 selections in the set, roughly half of the 23-song show. The preceding album, “Positions,” only got three positions in the concert, but that was still more than any of the preceding albums. The “Thank U, Next,” “Dangerous Woman” and “My Everything” albums were represented by two songs each, while “Yours Truly” and the forthcoming “Petal” contributed one song apiece to the set. Rounding it out was “Rain on Me,” with pre-recorded vocals by Lady Gaga; that duet only appeared on a Gaga album. Somewhat surprisingly, the only Grande album from which no songs were performed was “Sweetener,” as if she’d gotten that album out of her system with the 2019 “Sweetener Tour.”
Costume-change breaks were covered by video segments portraying Grande in a scenario where her memories are being erased, a la the “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” film that inspired her last album’s title. Eventually the filmic Grande meets a little girl who may be a younger version of herself, as they play on a swingset and then wander into the foreboding lab where the memory erasure is taking place.
Much like the “Sweetener” tour, the initial emphasis is on Grande interacting with her dancers as a troupe, eventually giving way to predominantly solo appearances by the singer on the extended ramp that leads to a B-stage nearly all the way across the floor from the main stage. At the end of the show, at the climax of “Supernatural,” Grande was lifted into a UFO-type bank of lights hovering over the B-stage. She stayed within that overhead structure, at least for a bit, while credits for the entire production rolled across circular screens surrounding the enclosure, and the recording of another “Eternal Sunshine” track, “Ordinary Things,” played over the PA as the audience began to exit.
The “Eternal Sunshine” tour is a fairly limited one and will definitely not be living up to the eternality of its name, with Grande having made it clear she is looking to have other irons in the fire beyond her music career. After three nights at the Oakland Arena, Grande will move on to do five nights in two L.A.-area arenas (June 13-14 at the Crypto Arena and June 17-20 at the Kia Forum). Then the North American tour continues in Austin, Sunrise, Fl., Atlanta, Brooklyn, Boston, Montreal and Chicago, concluding its stateside run Aug. 6. From there, she plays a 10-night stand at the O2 Arena in London, and that’s all that is on the books.
Demand for tickets has been at a premium. The lowest get-in-the-door price for any of the upcoming shows on the resale market is in the 500s, and that is for a handful of obstructed-view tickets. Virtually any tickets available through secondary sellers for floor seats or in the loge/club sections of an arena are over $1,000. That could change if scalpers have to dump seats at the last minute, but prices have largely held firm as fans have realized this 11-city tour may really be the only chance to catch Grande for a long time if she plans to devote herself more fully to acting pursuits.
Setlist for Ariana Grande’s opening night in Oakland, Calif., June 6, 2026:
Yes, And?
Positions
Dandelion
The Boy Is Mine
Eternal Sunshine
Just Like Magic
Thank U, Next
7 Rings
Imperfect for You
Warm
Safety Net
One Last Time
Rain on Me
Break Free
Twilight Zone
Past Life
Dangerous Woman
Honeymoon Avenue
Hampstead
Into You
Hate That I Made You Love Me
We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)
Supernatural
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source variety.com ’
