Crowd goes bananas for heartthrob Shawn Mendes .
Shawn Mendes smiled as he looked at the 14,000plus joyous fans standing before him at the Oracle Arena in Oakland.
“I feel nervous tonight — in a good way,” he said to the sold-out crowd on July 11. “You guys have got my heart pounding up here.”
And the palpitations were most definitely mutual.
The crowd was going bananas for the 18-yearold Canadian heartthrob, who came to town in support of his chart-topping sophomore effort, last year’s “Illuminate.” The fans reacted favorably to his every move, showering the pop star with love and admiration — as well as a nonstop barrage of high-pitched screams — throughout the roughly 90-minute show.
They also showered him with money, waiting in long lines to spend big dollars at the well-stocked merchandise booths.
And we’re not talking just T-shirts, although there certainly were plenty of those available. But the bountiful merchandise booths were also selling everything from souvenir blankets ($35) and necklaces ($10), to chokers ($10) and short shorts ($35). There were even temporary tattoos ($10) available.
The crowd was both young and exuberant. It was also mostly female. At times, it seemed like the only guys in the building were Mendes, the dude selling nachos and, well, me. And nobody was paying much attention to two-thirds of that equation. (I’ll let readers do the math.)
Mendes certainly gave the audience plenty of reasons to pay attention. He was a likable and personable front man, charming the crowd with his winning smile and a steady supply of big radio hits. His voice was better than average and he proved handy on both guitar and piano.
In all, he’s a fairly impressive performer, especially given his age, and there’s every reason to think he should only get better in the years to come.
Taking the stage right around 8:30 p.m., Mendes kicked off the show in fine fashion with the energetic anthem “There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back,” which seemed to double as a kind of mission statement for the evening.
From there, he steamed straight into the sexy “Lights Out” before venturing into “I Don’t Even Know Your Name” from the popular 2015 studio debut “Handwritten.”
He was backed by a band for much of the night, yet some of the concert’s best moments came when it was simply Mendes and a guitar, or Mendes at a piano, carefully crooning such offerings as “A Little Too Much.”
“Stitches,” of course, was a fan favorite — and, remarkably, it sounded pretty much like the studio version. The main difference, of course, was that this rendition had an extra 14,000 or so backing vocals.
Mendes — like seemingly every other arena rocker on the planet does nowadays — also utilized a small secondary stage toward the back of the main floor area. He popped up there about 50 minutes into the show to deliver a sparkling solo take on the Ed Sheeran beauty “Castle on the Hill” and a few others, before returning to the bigger stage for “No Promises.”
He closed the main set by running through the ‘50s-rock-tinged “Don’t Be a Fool,” a powerful “Mercy” and, finally, a striking “Never Be Alone.” Mendes then returned for an encore — the smash hit “Treat You Better” — before sending fans out to brave the merchandise booths once more before heading back home.