Sabrina Carpenter brings her hits (and Susan Sarandon?) to Coachella

“How you feeling, Sabrinawood?” Sabrina Carpenter asked arsenic she gazed retired astatine the tens of thousands of fans she’d gathered into a makeshift metropolis Friday night. “I can’t judge I’m headlining Coachella.

“I mean, I tin a small bit.”

Indeed, erstwhile Carpenter made her Coachella debut successful 2024, the Disney kid turned popular icon vowed that the adjacent clip she played the godforsaken festival, her sanction would beryllium atop the bill.

She returned arsenic promised this play arsenic 1 of music’s biggest acts, with 2 No. 1 singles and a brace of Grammy-nominated albums nether her loop and a communicative to archer astir her emergence to stardom.

Heading into Coachella, I’d wondered whether Carpenter, 26, would simply play the aforesaid amusement she’d already brought respective times to L.A. (as precocious arsenic November) connected circuit down 2025’s “Short n’ Sweet” and past year’s “Man’s Best Friend.”

To her credit, though, she created a full caller production, which began with a video successful which Carpenter is pulled implicit by a constabulary connection played by the histrion Sam Elliott arsenic she drives toward a caller beingness successful Hollywood. In the video, Elliott lets her go, aft which she turned up successful the soma astatine Coachella to strut down a Walk of Fame concern and extremity up onstage successful a elaborate simulacrum of the Hollywood Hills.

The archetypal fractional of the amusement featured a clump of songs from the singer’s past 2 LPs — she sang “Please Please Please” successful a mock-up of a recording-studio vocal booth, portion “When Did You Get Hot?” sounded similar En Vogue’s “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” — arsenic good arsenic an oldie successful “Because I Liked a Boy.”

Sabrina Carpenter performs.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Then came a precise agelong quality by Susan Sarandon, who delivered a monologue astir … the trauma of puerility celebrity? Honestly, it was hard to archer — a spot of a miscalculation connected Carpenter’s part, arsenic though she’d assumed that everyone astatine Coachella wanted to perceive her deepest (if vaguest) thoughts astir the symptom of increasing up successful the Mouse House.

“She amended travel retired successful an astonishing outfit,” 1 pistillate adjacent to maine said of Carpenter arsenic Sarandon continued to widen the singer’s costume change.

Once Carpenter was backmost — wearing leggings and a bluish sweater — she did “Go Go Juice” and “Sugar Talking” successful a benignant of dance-studio mounting past interpolated a spot of Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana (At the Copa)” into “Feather” earlier Will Ferrell appeared arsenic an irritated signifier tech moaning and groaning astir the demands of Carpenter’s show. (Again: benignant of a fail.)

Yet she finished beardown with speedy versions of “Juno,” “Espresso” and “Goodbye” into “Tears,” which got an elaborate h2o amusement that proved Carpenter tin supply the close magnitude of razzle-dazzle erstwhile she wants to.