Kelsea Ballerini performed from her new album, Patterns, to a sold out Madison Square Garden crowd on Tuesday night (Oct. 29), but it was a song off her last record that brought her to tears.
Sporting a rhinestone-embellished black jumpsuit, Ballerini sang “Penthouse,” a song from her viral Rolling Up the Welcome Mat EP. It was the second-to-last song on the setlist, and one lyric made the singer burst into tears.
As she sang, the crowd sang back:
“I bought the house with a fence / Enough room for some kids, a backyard for Dibs.”
Ballerini broke the news to fans in August that her goldendoodle dog, Dibs, has cancer in his heart. It is inoperable, the singer said at the time.
Unable to finish the song, the crowd finished the chorus for her. As they sang, she stepped back, not only soaking up the moment, but letting her emotions flow.
“He’s not in pain, and luckily it hasn’t spread further,” she told fans earlier this year.
Time with Dibs is something Ballerini is cherishing, so to have thousands of fans singing that part back at her, it hit deeper than it might have in the past.
To close out the night, she stripped her performance back. She chose to wrap the night up with “To the Men Who Love Women After Heartbreak,” a song which nods to her boyfriend, actor Chase Stokes, who was in the crowd cheering her on.
In more fan-captured video, Stokes can be seen overcome by emotion.
This Madison Square Garden performance kicks off Ballerini’s Patterns Tour. Next up, she has a show in Grand Rapids, Mich., on January 21.
Kelsea Ballerini’s 2024 MSG Setlist
“This Time Last Year”
“Baggage”
“First Rodeo”
“How Much Do You Love Me”
“Two Things”
“We Broke Up”
“Wait”
“Deep”
“Nothing Really Matters”
“Sorry Mom”
“Beg for Your Love”
“Cowboys Cry Too”
“I Would, Would You” (with “Lean On Me”)
“Did You Make It Home?” (Outro)
“Love Me Like You Mean It”
“Peter Pan”
“Miss Me More”
“Hole in the Bottle”
“If You Go Down (I’m Going Down Too)”
“Mountain With a View”
“Blindsided”
“Penthouse”
“To the Men Who Love Women After Heartbreak”
PICTURES: See Inside Kelsea Ballerini’s Dazzling Nashville Farmhouse
Kelsea Ballerini is taking fans inside the dazzling modern farmhouse that she now calls home in Nashville. The singer’s new residence is filled with colorful furniture and bold-print wallpaper that she calls “maximalist,” but it’s also set on a piece of land big enough for her dog, Dibs, to have some room to roam.
Gallery Credit: Sterling Whitaker