During one of her chats with the crowd at PPG Paints Arena Saturday, Kelsea Ballerini thanked the fans for making the “beautiful, insane choice of being here tonight.”

It wasn't insane at all, really.

The fans holding those tickets a few months longer than expected got to scan them in for a dynamic show that was a little bit party, a little bit therapy, a little bit honky-tonk and a lot of sing-along fun.

The 31-year-old country-pop and “The Voice” coach, forced to cancel back in February due to illness, was in full command on her first headlining arena tour.

Ballerini built her fanbase by being the type of artist who, like Taylor Swift, spills her diary into her songs. Her 2023 EP “Rolling Up the Welcome Mat” addressed her divorce from Australian country singer Morgan Evans, and the new “Patterns,” her first album to top the country charts, is a more forward-looking journey.

She took the stage — in a sequined cocktail dress and hair back in a ponytail — to Shania Twain’s “Man, I Feel Like a Woman,” and quickly shifted the energy to the moody and seductive “Patterns,” sitting atop a pile of suitcases.

They were set pieces for the second song, “Baggage,” a bouncy romp about love’s carry-on concerns. Holding a pink guitar, she sang, “I got baggage, but I’m movin’ in!” She had the female crowd shouting those lines back to her at a high, excited pitch.

Ballerini greeted them by saying there were only two shows left in the tour, and she thanked them for being patient with her flu episode. She marveled at how her crowd had gone from 2,200 at Stage AE in 2023 to the 13,000 at PPG.

Back in January she told the PG, “The first part of the show is very upbeat and bright and girly and fun. The second part is, I would call it, the female-rage section. And the third part is very musical and more emotional.”

She got things rockin’ with “IF YOU GO DOWN (I’M GOIN’ DOWN TOO),” a sort-of Bonnie-and-Clyde road trip, after which she did a well-deserved little “yee-haw.” She went to the honky-tonk and into the breakup section with “hole in the bottle,” a drink-away-the-heartbreak number.

Her voice was clear and super pretty throughout, especially on songs like “First Rodeo,” with its delicate lilt, sung behind a screen of spinning carousel horses.

“I sense a lot of female rage in the room. Is that right?” she said, launching into “Miss Me More,” a loud, defiant breakup song about reclaiming your independence and the things you’d been giving up. That sentiment stretched into another banger, “We Broke Up,” with heavy Taylor vibes.

She also got into the sadness and conflicted mess of feelings with “Mountain with a View” and “WAIT!,” sung mostly on her knees. Noah Kahan wasn’t there, of course, but she held her own on their rousing hit, “Cowboys Cry Too.”

The most vulnerable moment was her solo acoustic “To the Men Who Love Women After Heartbreak,” which she stopped and restarted when she got teary-eyed. It was part of an unplugged section with “Beg For Your Love” and “Peter Pan” that let the voices in the band shine.

Ballerini was sweet and talkative with the fans throughout the show. That section brought the obligatory motivational speech — but a heartfelt one — with her own story of being “a recovering people pleaser” and how, perhaps with therapy, “it’s never too late to change your life.”

“I wanted to end [the show] with the feeling of a big warm hug,” she said in that January interview.

She accomplished that with “I Would, Would You,” segueing into a group cover of Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me,” and then, after agreeing to a tequila shot, “How Do I Do This,” a charming song of first-date jitters with hip-hop beats and confetti.

The warm hug was complete with a finale of “Penthouse” that isolated her powerful pipes and those of her fans who adored Kelsea Ballerini even more after seeing how genuine she is in person.

Set list

Patterns

Baggage

Love Me Like You Mean It

This Time Last Year

Future Tripping

IF YOU GO DOWN (I'M GOIN' DOWN TOO)

hole in the bottle

First Rodeo

Blindsided

Miss Me More

We Broke Up

Mountain With a View

Cut Me Up

WAIT!

Cowboys Cry Too

To the Men Who Love Women After Heartbreak

Beg For Your Love

Peter Pan

MUSCLE MEMORY

I Would, Would You / Lean on Me

How Do I Do This

Penthouse (Healed Version)

First Published: April 13, 2025, 2:27 p.m.
Updated: April 14, 2025, 2:01 a.m.