The gravity-defying pop star performed two exceptional concerts in Auckland at the weekend – but both were marred by traffic chaos outside. 

Pink’s love affair with this part of the world is no surprise. On her 2013 tour of Australia, she performed close to 50 arena dates across the country, including a record-breaking 18 in Melbourne alone. In 2018, she made her long-awaited return to New Zealand for the first time in more than a decade, playing six sold out shows at Spark Arena and a stadium gig in Dunedin, alongside more than 30 concerts across the ditch. Following the well-established route of pop royalty before her, Pink brought her latest tour ‘Summer Carnival’ exclusively to stadiums – becoming the first woman to play two sold out shows at Eden Park, along with a return to Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium. Close to another 20 stadium shows in Australia made it the biggest tour in the region ever (though one must wonder whether that record would have survived if Taylor Swift decided to play outside of just Sydney and Melbourne).

And so on Friday and Saturday night, a combined total of more than 100,000 people poured into the country’s national stadium. And on both nights, thousands of people found themselves stuck in a mosh pit outside the venue as they tried to make it onto buses or trains back home (more on that later). 

Pink’s ability to cross generations is almost as impressive as her death-defying aerial performance. As someone in their 20s, I was a minority in the general admission, surrounded primarily by mums with earmuff-wearing children. It’s the culmination of a career evolution that started about a decade ago, as Pink’s status as a chart topper saw her move away from her pop-rock roots to more mainstream pop. As a result, her show this weekend covered (most of) the hits, despite a new album – Trustfall – from last year.

This natural evolution means the angrier songs of Pink’s youth, ‘Just Like a Pill’ for one, don’t cut as deep as they would have two decades ago, though they’re still a highlight of the setlist. Her newer songs don’t cut as deep either, but that’s just because they’re not as good. But the Pink you see swinging around a trapeze singing the anger-fuelled fuck you anthem ‘So What’ is no longer a grungy 20-something but a 44-year-old mum of two who seems to be filled with nothing but happiness. Pink has even elected to sanitise some of her older songs, ditching the swear words (while the older attendees loudly scream them back). This evolution to legacy pop performer is exemplified best by the moment that Pink is joined on stage by her teenage daughter Willow to sing the saccharine radio anthem ‘Cover Me in Sunshine’.

It could just be because every pop show now must now naturally be compared to Swift’s Eras Tour, the setlist of which is so perfectly curated to cover the ups and downs of her discography, but the top and bottom-heavy distribution of Pink’s pop bangers means the middle of the show lags a bit. Starting the show literally hanging from the ceiling for ‘Get the Party Started’, she moves straight into ‘Raise Your Glass’ and traces through many of her classic hits before the first act is done. I don’t blame her for wanting to follow this high energy opener with a few slower moments, and Pink is self-aware as she tells the crowd to go grab another beer as she settles down at the piano, but I wouldn’t have minded a slight reshuffle of the set.

But, of course, it’s Pink’s finale, immortalised through hundreds of identical TikToks, that’s enough to make you forget about any fleeting doubts of whether the show started off too strong. Flying around the entirety of Eden Park in a harness, flipping, waving and smiling at everyone on the field and in the nosebleeds alike – nobody does spectacle like Pink does. 

Leaving Eden Park on a high, I was quickly brought down to earth by what awaited me outside the venue. Despite the number of sold out rugby matches over the years, it felt like Eden Park had never had to deal with thousands of people trying to get home before.

The traffic chaos on Friday night was well-documented, with reports claiming hour-long waits to get onto trains from Kingsland station. Saturday was just as much of a shitshow, but for different reasons. In short: it was a nightmare. A woman near me fainted as the sea of people poured onto Morningside Drive, while another next to me was visibly starting to panic. People were calling for medics, but were drowned out by angry people stuck moving nowhere. Having recently been part of an 80,000-strong crowd of people leaving Sydney’s Accor Stadium after The Eras Tour, crowd control that was managed efficiently and quickly, it makes me think Eden Park still has some work to do in making concerts an enjoyable experience for attendees. Because this was nothing short of chaos.

Both Auckland Transport and Eden Park have been approached for comment, but in a statement to RNZ, the transport operator said it was pleased with how traffic was managed on Saturday night. “For an event of this scale, moving more than 20,000 people in such a short space of time is a pleasing result and a testament to the hard work of our operators,” said AT.

It was a bitter pill after a night of joy. Pink’s show is proof that stadium pop remains the pinnacle of live entertainment. The songs may have lost some of their edge, but the wonder at seeing them belted out from up in the air remains unbeaten. Let’s just hope that by the time Coldplay arrives for three shows at the stadium this December, it’s a bit easier to get home after.