A soaring set from Pink at Fenway Park
Midway through Pink’s set at Fenway Park on Monday night, the singer-songwriter began listing off songs she wished she’d written — the toddler sensation “Baby Shark” was first on her list, followed by 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up,” the keening cut written in the ‘90s by her eventual songwriting collaborator Linda Perry. This was all a leadin to Pink performing her own piano-led rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love” — another song she said she’d have loved to create.
While she’s a few decades younger than the Nobel Prizewinning rock legend, Pink has accomplished a lot during her time in the spotlight. She emerged as a rough-and-tumble belter during the Y2K teenpop era; on her second album,
2001’s “Missundaztood,” she wrestled for control and switched up her sound. Her raspy alto proving to be versatile, but perhaps even more importantly than her sonic shift on that album, she was upfront about her struggles with mental health, family strife, and record label politics while also cutting loose on songs like Monday’s opener “Get the Party Started.” She established herself as relatable and multifaceted — a larger-than-life star who was still human, and who wasn’t afraid to open up about her life while careening around a stage.
That combination has served Pink well in the ensuing decades, as Monday night’s show proved. Over nine albums (and a couple of retrospective collections), she’s pursued her musical curiosities while remaining open about her personal life, a combination that’s worked well in tandem and also further proven the versatility of her voice — she can handle trembling power ballads like the wistful 2006 cut “Who Knew” as easily as motivational tracks like the 2010 plea “[Expletive] Perfect” and cheeky kiss-offs like 2012’s “Blow Me (One Last Kiss).”
Her latest album, “Trustfall,” which came out in February, grapples with the 2021 death of her father on the grieving yet hopeful “When I Get There,” dabbles in stripped-down country-pop on the collaboration with Swedish duo First Aid Kit “Kids in Love,” and has reliable all-ages party starters like the defiant yet joyful “Never Gonna Not Dance Again.” Her stylistic shifts, which were further underscored by covers of the Dylan cut and Sade’s sumptuous “No Ordinary Love,” came off naturally during Monday’s set, while her dropping of opener Pat Benatar’s 1979 breakthrough snarl “Heartbreaker” into the stomping “Just Like Fire” placed her squarely in Benatar’s pop family tree of talented belters with a lot of bones to pick.
In the late ’00s, Pink began incorporating aerial tricks into her sets, heightening the drama of her more serious tracks and amping up the glee of her more upbeat cuts. (“Why would I stay on the ground if I don’t have to?” she deadpanned to “People” earlier this year.) The scale of Fenway Park allowed for Monday night’s off-the-ground antics to be jaw-dropping: She opened the show by careening out of a set piece above the stage; later, she performed a slings duet with one of her many backup dancers to the bruised yet supportive “Turbulence.” The biggest moment came at the night’s close, when she whipped and flipped around Fenway Park while suspended by wires, reaching the bleachers as the petulant 2008 chart-topper “So What” blared. The declaration “So what, I’m still a rock star/ I got my rock moves” lands a bit more impressively when those motions involve pulleys, wires, and backflips — but that combination only amped up Pink’s towering, yet empathetic appeal.