There were plenty of boys at Tuesday's "The Girls Night Out, Boys Can Come Too Tour" at the AVA at Casino del Sol, which seemed to thrill co-headliner Christina Perri to no end.
"You did come!" she exclaimed after taking a headcount by a show of shouts when she implored the crowd filling about two-thirds of the amphitheater to "Let me hear the boys."
The response wasn't nearly as explosive as when she asked to hear from the girls in the audience, but the men were loud enough to convince you plenty of them weren't intimidated by the tour's title.
Don't be mistaken: "Girls Night Out" was decidedly for the ladies. It was, after all, headlined by two very strong female artists whose music naturally takes a woman's point of view. But the recurring theme throughout the nearly four-hour concert was to never give up on your dreams, a message that easily resonated with both sexes.
Perri and her tour mate Colbie Caillat recounted how their success was two parts tenacity and a little unexplained luck: Perri's came when her breakthrough song "Jar of Hearts" was played on "Dancing With the Stars in 2010; Caillat's success came via MySpace when a friend posted a demo of her catchy song "Bubbly" that somehow made its way around the world and into the ears of a record executive who signed her to a recording deal nearly a decade ago.
And the message culminated in the two artists' most recent singles, songs that have powerful empowering messages that speak more to women than men: Perri's "Human" and Caillat's "Try."
But the concert was more about the music and the fun of performing it. There were no fiery speeches about women's rights or commentary on how women have become a political football in the 2016 presidential race. It was about Perri, donning a black dress and bedazzled black Vans sneakers, wrapping her "Arms" around a love who might let go at any minute and her peppy "Be My Forever," a frolicking duet with her guitarist that she called the "happiest song" she's ever done.
"A whole lot of happiness is coming at you," she said and then she pranced lightly around the stage in a way that was contagiously happy. Surprisingly, only a few people got out of their seats to join her happy dance.
A lot of Perri's songs — "Believe," "One Night," "A Thousand Years," "Jar of Hearts," "The Lonely" — were heavily drenched in emotion, but she didn't let herself wallow in it. One of the evening's most touching moments was "The Words," a piano ballad made even more interesting with a cello adding a baritone resonance. But the biggest applause during her 75-minute show came when she performed "Human," a song that offered a message of inspiration to men and women alike that we're all human; we all make mistakes that deserve forgiveness.
Caillat opened her show with the energetic pop ode "Live It Up" off her new album "Gypsy Heart," a song with toe-tapping pep that seem to fall flat. It took Caillat — who has struggled with stage fright — a few songs before she found her rhythm and felt comfortable enough with the audience to let herself really enjoy the moment.
Her 90-minute show was a survey of her nearly 10-year career hitting all the highlights of pop songs that have defined her: "Fallin' For You," "Brighter Than the Sun," "Favorite Song." The audience stormed the stage front a few bars into "Bubbly," and Caillat instructed the AVA's security to let them stay — a request that the staff seemed to happily honor.
Caillat's show included a guest appearance by her fiancé Justin Young on "Lucky," a song she wrote and recorded with Jason Mraz; and a guest duet for "Droplets" with her longtime writing partner Jason Reeves, who opened the concert with his wife and High Dive Heart duo partner Nelly Joy. Reeves and Caillat cowrote her 2007 debut album "Coco."
But her latest single "Try," like Perri's "Human," proved to be the evening's inspirational and emotional highlight. Caillat, who played the guitar a couple times during her show, performed the song from the piano with the video for the song playing on a large screen behind her.
If "Girls Night Out" had one defining girls moment, it was this performance. Caillat said she wrote the song during a time when she struggled with how difficult it is for women to try to meet the standards of beauty that society sets out for them.
"You don't have to try so hard / You don't have to, give it all away / You just have to get up, get up, get up, get up / You don't have to change a single thing."
When she finished the final verse — "Take your make-up off / Let your hair down / Take a breath / Look into the mirror, at yourself / Don't you like you? / 'Cause I like you" — the audience was on its feet applauding.
