Arizona was invited to Janelle Monáe’s garden party at The Age of Pleasure Tour this week. The superstar graced Arizona Financial Theatre’s stage with her plethora of stunning costumes, an army of talented musicians and dancers and a setlist that spanned every era of Monáe’s incredible career.
The lights dimmed and fog poured from behind the elaborately decorated stage as the band took their places one by one, making way for Monáe herself. Dressed in the floral equivalent of the technicolor dreamcoat (with matching headdress!), her smile lit up the theater and had fans in the front row utterly falling over themselves with excitement.
The set was broken into five distinct acts designed to take the audience on a journey. We toasted to Monáe’s mantra as she held up a glass of bubbly for “Champagne Shit” and her dancers made sure the crowd didn’t miss a moment of the action. Per Monáe’s orders, we were not to think about the past or the future- the night was all about living in the moment.
Act II meant another costume change for the powerful “Django Jane” and “Electric Lady”. Monáe has always been strong and unapologetic in her music and performances, but this new era has given her an even wider open space to unleash a freedom of spirit we haven’t seen yet. That brought us to Act III, where the pleasures of the flesh dominated the theme of “Lipstick Lover” and “Paid in Pleasure”.
Eager to share this with her fans, Monáe and her dancers hand-selected some very lucky fans to groove along for a number- each of them getting a well-deserved spotlight and a chance to share the joy on that stage. The final acts of the show took everyone to the paradise we’d been searching for before the entire crew said their goodbyes- but not for long.
Naturally, there was an encore of epic proportions, culminating in Monáe’s smash hit “Tightrope” and “Come Alive (The War of the Roses)”. A huge crowd of fabulously-dressed people left the theater bathed in the warmth of Monáe’s impeccable energy, ready to once again take that trip to paradise next time around.
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Story and photos by Olivia Khiel
