The last time I saw and in concert was exactly eight years ago. Back then, Jonas was still ⅓ of the and wore green Converse sneakers. Lovato, fresh off her debut in Disney’s “Camp Rock,” shyly opened for the siblings on acoustic guitar.
Itap safe to say that the former Disney stars were nearly unrecognizable last night at the Pepsi Center, where they put on a sleek pop show complete with lasers, sequined bodysuits and enough crotch grabs and f-bombs to make a family sitting in front of me with young kids and bags of cotton candy bounce early.
Lovato and Jonas’s “Future Now” tour is doing what so many former Disney starlets tried to do — wooing older fans and trading in that squeaky clean image for a sexier one. Selena Gomez is . Before them, there was Britney Spears’ iconic red bodysuit in “.”
Itap hard not to draw comparisons between Lovato and Jonas in a co-bylining tour since they’ve worked together for so long. Jonas opened first with “Levels,” a club-happy, beat-heavy dance track released last year. Jonas is not a dancer, strutting the stage and dragging the mic stand in skinny jeans with at least a dozen different zippers.
Jonas whizzed through most of the first part of his set without too much banter with the crowd, projecting video clips of sizzling bacon during “Bacon,” a song celebrating the single life. (I was disappointed when rapper Ty Dolla $ign didn’t show up onstage with a plate of real bacon for the audience.) A lull in his set came at the end when he performed “Numb” and “Chains” back to back, R&B-inspired pop songs that were hard to separate.
When Lovato took the stage, it quickly became clear that this tour was really her show. The crowd was louder for her and she descended from the top of a glass cube during her opener, “Confident,” belting the chorus without missing a beat. During “Neon Lights,” multicolored lights transformed the floor of the Pepsi Center into a disco.
I spent most of the show deciphering why Lovato was the stronger pop performer — both singers have been in the spotlight before they could drive — and eventually concluded that she was simply more sincere than Jonas. Lovato has always been open with her fans about her struggles with mental illness and she simply gave them more Tuesday night. Her songs are lyrically more vulnerable — “Skyscraper” and “Stone Cold” showed off her impressive vocal abilities, but the emotion she poured into the ballads held the audience rapt.
Jonas, on the other hand, delivered the perfect pop performance. His tracks seamlessly blended together and made for great mini dance parties, but the most honest moment of his set came when he sat down at the piano to play “Chainsaw,” a breakup song from his newest album. Jonas explained to the audience that the song was a product of Lovato challenging him to be more honest with his songwriting.
As Lovato and Jonas’s fans grew older as well, they also outgrew being dazzled by bells and whistles. Now young adults, they demand candor along with the lasers, trendy outfits and backup dancers. Lovato delivers on that front but Jonas just isn’t quite there yet. That discrepancy was apparent on Tuesday night.
