Sabrina Carpenter<\/a> brought Hollywood, Broadway and a good old fashioned house party to the desert in a rollicking, raunchy and hit-filled headlining Coachella set.<\/p>\n\n\tThere were costume changes, elaborate set pieces and celebrity cameos \u2014 but no duets. (She didn\u2019t \u201carrest\u201d anyone, either, despite rumors that Madonna might be put in her signature cuffs.)<\/p>\n
\n\tCarpenter opened the set with a black-and-white intro video \u2014 pre-taped scenes have become commonplace in Coachella\u2019s pop star era \u2014 in which she\u2019s driving a car down a dark desert road, staring at a younger version of herself in a nearby vehicle. A cop, played by Sam Elliott, pulls over for some reason he can\u2019t articulate and warns her not to go to California (\u201cYou know it\u2019s not right out there. It\u2019s wrong,\u201d he says).<\/p>\n
\n\tThe sketch went on a bit long, coupled with Carpenter\u2019s extended catwalk entrance, but when the lights flooded the stage and the orchestral suite segued into \u201cHouse Tour,\u201d the show got off to a start as red-hot as the headliner\u2019s dress.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe first half of the set exuded a vintage showbiz flare. Retro cars overlooked the first backdrop \u2014 a replica of the Hollywood Hills \u2014 before big letters spelling \u201cSABRINAWOOD\u201d appeared from behind the miniature mountains. Plus, there was more than one direct reference to Marilyn Monroe. (Carpenter not only sometimes resembles the Blonde Bombshell, but she similarly knows how to straddle the line between sex appeal and self-deprecating silliness.)<\/p>\n
\n\tCarpenter\u2019s vocals sounded mostly pristine throughout the 90-minute performance, an impressive feat for someone moving around so much (\u201cMy Man on Willpower\u201d even had her walking forward and backward on a treadmill in heeled boots). A highlight was the live debut of \u201cWe Almost Broke Up Again Last Night,\u201d which had Carpenter belting about a relationship that\u2019s on-again, off-again, on-again, off-again (and so on).<\/p>\n
\n\tDuring the exuberant \u201cManchild,\u201d Carpenter navigated a horde of men costumed as poodles and Dalmatians, prancing around the stage as they lifted one leg to mock-tinkle. (\u201cSquirrel!\u201d she yelled in between chorus and verse \u2014 perhaps a reference to the dog from Pixar\u2019s \u201cUp.\u201d) During \u201cTaste,\u201d she kicked her legs high in the hair and let the crowd show off their singing chops. And during \u201cPlease Please Please,\u201d Anya Taylor-Joy and fellow Coachella performer Sombr were spotted on the livestream bopping their heads and singing along.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019m headlining Coachella!\u201d Carpenter shouted early on. \u201cI mean, I can a little bit, but it\u2019s nicer to say that, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tClearly, the set was front-loaded with hits (three of her four biggest songs arrived within the first 20 minutes or so), which provided a jolt of excitement up top but a somewhat brutal lull in the middle. One bizarre, nearly 7-minute interlude featured Susan Sarandon playing an older version of Carpenter, delivering a wistful monologue about what a future niece might think of her. Carpenter\u2019s \u201cGirl Meets World\u201d co-star Corey Fogelmanis made a cameo, too, as a waiter at a drive-in theater. (And if audiences didn\u2019t recognize him, the festival made sure to plaster his name on the bottom of the livestream.) The scene, a bungled reflection on wish fulfillment, brought the pop show to a screeching halt. A message I received from someone on the ground read: \u201cPeople are sitting down. This is a momentum killer. Lots of people leaving.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe drawn-out cameo did allow for a costume change \u2014 Carpenter finally reappeared in a blue turtleneck sweater \u2014 and the Los Angeles mountainscape was replaced by a 1980s-inspired audition room. But it took a little while for the show to pick back up. The decision to follow a spoken-word performance with three slow songs (\u201cGo Go Juice,\u201d \u201cSuch a Funny Way\u201d and \u201cSugar Talking\u201d) didn\u2019t help move things along.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut then \u201cFeather\u201d rolled around, with a flock of lingerie-laden ladies following Carpenter across the stage with luscious, black bird wings. And a \u201cCopacabana\u201d sample brought back that hint of cheeky glamour.<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd then there were a few more celebrity cameos. Will Ferrell played an electrician, dragging a power cord across the stage in a bit that didn\u2019t quite connect, and Carpenter\u2019s usual sex position gag in \u201cJuno\u201d was replaced by the ringing of a gong and a voiceover from Samuel L. Jackson: \u201cHello, Coachella. This is your spiritual guide. I am here to take you motherfuckers on this journey to relaxation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tCarpenter finished strong at the center of a Broadway-inspired set piece, with flashing marquees reading \u201cIcon in Motion\u201d and \u201cShe\u2019ll Dream Come True It for Ya!\u201d Before launching into her biggest hit, she reflected on the last time she played Coachella, in 2024. She had released \u201cEspresso\u201d a night before her performance and virtually no one in the crowd knew the words. She promised the audience then: \u201cSee you back here when I headline!\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWell, it didn\u2019t take long for that dream to come true. \u201cTwo years ago, I wanted to put out a little song before Coachella,\u201d Carpenter said, sipping from an espresso martini glass. \u201cAnd now I think you might know the fucking words.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe stage erupted into a confetti-covered costume party, with nuns dancing next to showgirls and Chippendales, before Carpenter returned to those vintage cars for her final song, \u201cTears.\u201d The hilariously raunchy ode to male competence saw the pop star elevated at the center of a sprinkler-head chair, spritzing herself and her backup dancers. And then she got back in the car, turned up the radio and drove the hell out of there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source variety.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sabrina Carpenter brought Hollywood, Broadway and a good old fashioned house party to the desert in a rollicking, raunchy and hit-filled headlining Coachella set. There were costume changes, elaborate set pieces and celebrity cameos \u2014 but no duets. (She didn\u2019t \u201carrest\u201d anyone, either, despite rumors that Madonna might be put in her signature cuffs.) Carpenter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2368252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[27664],"class_list":["post-2368251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-sabrina-carpenter"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Sabrina-Carpenter-Coachella-Review-Celebrity-Cameos-and-Big-Hits.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2368251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2368253,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368251\/revisions\/2368253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2368252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2368251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2368251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2368251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}