As Ariana Grande prepares to play the final few dates on her Eternal Sunshine tour, fans still have a few chances left to enjoy her undoubted talent before she takes a step back from public life.
Her current show has received rave reviews, and one of the most talked about moments comes when Grande stands alone on her B-stage and asks the audience for quiet as she begins a performance of the title track of her 2024 album, Eternal Sunshine, by live looping her vocals.
Given the scale of the venues she’s playing, it seems like an audacious move, but as longtime Grande watchers will know, she’s been a fan of looping hardware since the start of her career.
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In fact, we have her own YouTube channel to prove it: take this clip from 2007 that features a 14-year-old Grande using what appears to be a Boss RC device of some sort to create a live cover of India Arie’s There’s Hope.
Grande was at it again a few years later, in 2013, when she gave us this live looped version of Imogen Heap’s Just For Now using what looks like a Boss RC-50, another guitarist-centric product.
“I know I’m not supposed to use these foot pedals like this but it works,” she wrote, acknowledging that she was using her hands rather than her feet to press them.
Grande did get a tabletop Boss looper eventually, though – the RC-505 MkII – and used it to great effect in the intro of a live version of 2020 single Positions, which she performed for Vevo in 2021. According to Vevo’s Ed Walker, who was interviewed by Business Insider at the time, Grande told the producers of the video that she hadn’t used a looper for some years, but the RC-505 had seemingly reignited her love affair with its concept.
“She got one in the studio and she just used it and then she was like, ‘Right, we’re starting the song with this,’” recalled Walker. “It took her back to being in her bedroom.”
When Grande appeared with what looks like an RC-505 on the Eternal Sunshine tour, then, it was far from a surprise.
At the time of writing, only seven performances remain – all at London’s O2 – after which we may not see the star on stage again for quite some time.
