On July 31st, alternative pop sensation Melanie Martinez performed the 27th show of her Trilogy Tour at the GIANT Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania (28th if you include her appearance at Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival). This tour serves to showcase her three studio albums: Cry Baby (2015), K-12 (2019), and PORTALS (2023). The tour opened on May 10th at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, Washington, where she performed nearly 30 songs in total. By the time she reached Hershey in late July, however, this number was reduced to a mere 20.
The first thing that set the GIANT Center concert apart from its 26 predecessors was a change in the opening act. Changing the opener at this point seemed like a strange choice with just three shows remaining in the North American leg of the tour, and many fans were unaware that this would be the first show without bands Men I Trust and Beach Bunny. I only knew that the new opener would be English alternative artist Lola Young because I happened to see her name listed on the GIANT Center’s website when I checked their bag policy. When Lola Young’s accompanying band took the stage, I heard a girl in front of me ask if they were Men I Trust. I regretfully informed the girl that the opening act would be different tonight, and with horror she asked if that meant Beach Bunny would also not be performing. I had been equally as disappointed by this news because I love Beach Bunny and was looking forward to seeing them live, but at least I knew what to expect beforehand; this poor girl, and surely many others in the audience, must have been terribly confused when neither Beach Bunny nor Men I Trust made an appearance.
What I found far more upsetting, however, was the significant reduction in the headliner’s setlist. At first, I didn’t notice that any songs had been missing from the Cry Baby portion of the show. During the interlude between Cry Baby and K-12, however, the friend that had accompanied me to the concert pointed out that Melanie didn’t perform “Alphabet Boy.” A woman standing near us lamented that this was the song she had been most looking forward to. While this emission was clearly disappointing for multiple fans, the Cry Baby set still felt fairly sufficient with a total of 8 songs.
The exclusions from the K-12 set, on the other hand, were far more obvious. I was very confused when Melanie left the stage after performing a mere four songs (and the chorus of a fifth). I immediately realized that she had skipped over “Lunchbox Friends” and “Class Fight.” I wasn’t too disappointed by the former since I don’t particularly love that song; however, “Class Fight” is one of my favorite songs by her, so I had been ecstatic to see it appear on previous setlists from the tour. She also did not perform “Strawberry Shortcake,” but this was less surprising as she had also removed this song from the set at the Honda Center in California.
The PORTALS portion was considerably longer than K-12’s, but still not as long as it had been at earlier performances. I had been particularly looking forward to seeing “THE CONTORTIONIST” after one of the A Cappella groups at my alma mater performed an arrangement of this song at their spring concert last April, but it didn’t make the cut for Hershey’s setlist. Another one of my favorite songs off this album, “SPIDER WEB,” also got the axe. On our way out of the venue, we encountered a woman wearing a beautiful green dress with lights in the skirt. When I complimented the garment, she told me with a tinge of longing in her voice that she based the design off the song “LIGHT SHOWER.” This song, as well as the song “TUNNEL VISION,” were both played at every other concert on the tour except for this one.
Upon further investigation, I discovered that the Hershey setlist was identical to the one Melanie had performed at Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival back in June. I completely understand shortening the setlist for a music festival where she wasn’t even one of the headliners, but there was no reason to make so many cuts for a normal stadium performance. It’s extremely unlikely that time was an issue: if she was able to perform between 26 and 28 songs at all of the concerts where she had two openers, why was she only able to perform 20 songs on the one night when she had just one opener? I know not everyone religiously checks setlists before concerts like I do, but I was not the only fan to feel gutted by the missing songs. TikTok user @smhlaii writes, “Concert was amazing [but] so sad she cut off 8 songs.” User hazel_.moon also describes the Hershey show as a “disaster.” While I don’t entirely agree with this statement, it was certainly bizarre and disheartening to know I unwittingly paid for the shortest non-festival concert on her entire tour.
