Review: Post Malone’s delayed tour kicked off in Charlotte. Was it worth the wait?
The following story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is experiencing a crisis, help is available. In the U.S., you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or visit 988lifeline.org for confidential support.
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It was shaping up to be the stuff tabloids are made of.
Last month, Post Malone canceled six stops on his 2026 Big Ass Stadium Tour with Jelly Roll because — he explained at the time — he needed to finish his upcoming 40-track double album, “The Eternal Buzz.” Then last week, he generated another round of headlines when a viral video showed him displaying what some interpreted as bizarre behavior during a performance.
So when the tour finally kicked off Tuesday night at Bank of America Stadium, plenty of eyes were watching for signs of trouble.
Instead, Charlotte got nearly three and a half hours of music from two wildly different performers who arrived at the same destination by completely different roads — Post Malone with his cigarettes and endless fan interaction, and Jelly Roll with his sermons on generational trauma and second chances.
Well, three wildly different performers, actually.
The evening began with Davidson native Carter Faith taking the stage in a Carolina Panthers-blue minidress and leopard-print heels to face one of the toughest assignments in live music: trying to command a football stadium that was still filling up.
For a singer who played Charlotte’s Neighborhood Theatre less than three months ago, simply standing on a stage inside a venue built for 75,000 represented a remarkable leap.
But while Faith’s voice never seemed overwhelmed by the setting, her stage presence occasionally did.
The singer-songwriter appeared polished and professional throughout, but never quite found the personal connection that might have transformed a hometown opening slot into a memorable hometown moment, largely treating the biggest Charlotte performance of her career like any other stop on the tour.
Still, the soon-to-be-26-year-old sang confidently on her own songs (highlight: “Grudge,” with a refrain that includes the priceless line “I’m pretty sure that even Jesus thinks that you’re a b—-”) and delivered a handful of well-chosen covers, including James Taylor’s “Carolina in My Mind” and a breezy country reimagining of Britney Spears’ “Oops!… I Did It Again.”
And near the end of her set, Faith finally let her guard down, declaring the chance to open in this situation “a dream come true” — and very clearly meaning it.
If Faith spent much of her set trying to establish a connection, Jelly Roll forged one almost instantly.
Dressed almost entirely in black clothes more suitable for winter despite temperatures still hovering in the 80s, the 41-year-old singer bounded onstage and immediately established a tone that was equal parts concert, confessional and motivational speech.
Few artists have traveled a longer road to a stadium stage than Jelly Roll, who spent years battling addiction and legal trouble before reinventing himself as one of country music’s most unlikely success stories. He’s also unapologetically faith-focused, so it was no surprise that the long-sleeved black workshirt he wore Tuesday night was emblazoned on the front with Jeremiah 27:11 and on the back with this message:
“The windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror for a reason, because what’s in front of you is so much more important than what’s behind you.”
What did come out of left field, though, was his revelation that he almost missed opening night.
It surfaced after Jelly Roll — who has openly discussed attempting to take his own life twice by drug overdose during years marked by severe depression, addiction and time spent in and out of jail — spotted a sign in the floor section that read, “I’m Not OK — Suicide Survivor.”
“Because you were brave enough to hold that sign up and be that vulnerable,” he told the man holding it Tuesday night, “I want to be vulnerable to tell you I’ve had a really, really, really bad couple of weeks, and I have felt like (expletive), and I went to the hospital right before I got here, and I have the worst sinus infection I’ve ever had.
“I barely made it to this show,” he continued. But “that sign is the reason I couldn’t miss this show.”
Then he dedicated his raw mental-health anthem “I’m Not Okay” to the fan.
Jelly Roll was equally adept at the lighter moments. After a late-set medley that somehow wandered through the Black Eyed Peas, Creed, TLC, Snoop Dogg, Rage Against the Machine and ended with the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way,” he cracked: “I think that’s my favorite part of the show. I (get to) watch some of the toughest, tattooed, biggest, bearded men on earth turn into a Backstreet Boy by the end of that.”
The most impressive thing about his set, however, may have been how little the illness seemed to affect his performance. His booming voice remained largely intact, particularly on “Need a Favor” and “Son of a Sinner.”
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It’s among the things concertgoers likely will still be talking about Wednesday, along with another sobering moment — his impassioned meditation on breaking generational curses, in which he argued that people are not doomed to repeat the mistakes of their parents and grandparents.
But while Jelly Roll often sounded like a preacher delivering a sermon, Post Malone approached those same themes like the friendliest guy at the end of the bar.
When the affable headliner finally emerged at 9:33 p.m. — barefoot, cigarette in one hand and a Solo cup in the other — he wasn’t necessarily the more compelling performer.
But he was unquestionably the bigger star.
The production was enormous, unleashing blasts of fire so intense that fans 100 yards away could feel the heat and enough fireworks to briefly make Bank of America Stadium feel like the Fourth of July.
The setlist was a relentless parade of hits that included “Goodbyes,” “Psycho,” “Wow.,” “Congratulations” and “Rockstar,” with the strongest moments coming during the songs that have followed Malone across multiple genres and reinventions — “Circles” generated one of the night’s loudest singalongs, “I Fall Apart” remained surprisingly affecting, and penultimate song “Sunflower” had people dancing in their seats even though it was past 11.
And unlike the internet rumors that had swirled around him in recent weeks, Post looked energetic throughout much of the nearly two-hour set.
He strutted. He crouched. He screamed choruses. He walked repeatedly into the crowd. He dropped for a set of pushups during “rockstar.” At one point he climbed into a giant elevated cage above the audience for “Congratulations.”
Most notably, the moment that had recently fueled concern online looked far more theatrical in person than alarming.
After “Dead at the Honky Tonk,” Post pretended to collapse to the ground and after pulling himself into a seated position spent an oddly extended amount of time smoking a cigarette and staring into space. But within the context of the show, the sequence read as a performance choice rather than evidence of some unfolding crisis.
At the same time, Post remains a fascinatingly odd frontman.
He can be deeply likable without being particularly charismatic. He often sounds like he’s making up his stage banter as he goes. His speeches tend to circle the same themes — perseverance, self-belief, gratitude — without ever landing with the precision Jelly Roll’s display.
The sentiments were sincere. They just weren’t especially memorable.
There were other disappointments, too: A fan-participation segment during “Feeling Whitney” dragged on far too long and felt self-indulgent enough to cost the audience another song; and because Jelly Roll was apparently under the weather, fans were denied the expected duet on “Losers,” one of the more anticipated collaborations of the evening.
But otherwise, Post’s music largely delivered. So did his generosity.
Which is to say that for all of Jelly Roll’s superior storytelling and stagecraft, Post demonstrated something else entirely during the show’s closing moments.
Long after the final song ended, he lingered to spend time with fans.
He signed boots. He signed hats. He signed shirts. He signed photos. He signed skin. He hugged fans. He grabbed phones and took selfies. He worked one side of the stadium. Then the other.
House lights came up. Security was no doubt antsy to call it a night and go home. Post Malone kept smiling and shaking hands.
Jelly Roll may be the more thoughtful performer. He may be the sharper speaker, the better storyteller and the artist with the clearer sense of identity. But Post Malone possesses something increasingly rare at the stadium level: an almost desperate desire to make every fan feel personally appreciated.
On a night that officially launched a delayed tour and featured enough pyrotechnics to light up half of Charlotte, the most revealing moment wasn’t a song at all.
It was watching a global superstar who seemed to be having too much fun to leave.
1. “Texas Tea”
2. “Wow.”
3. “Better Now”
4. “Wrong Ones”
5. “Go Flex”
6. “Hollywood’s Bleeding”
7. “I Fall Apart”
8. “Losers”
9. “Goodbyes”
10. “What Don’t Belong to Me”
11. “I Ain’t Comin’ Back”
12. “Feeling Whitney”
13. “Stay”
14. “Circles”
15. “White Iverson”
16. “Psycho”
17. “Pour Me a Drink”
18. “Dead at the Honky Tonk”
19. “rockstar”
20. “I Had Some Help”
21. “Sunflower”
22. “Congratulations”
1. “Hands Up”
2. “Hard Fought Hallelujah” (Brandon Lake cover)
3. “Liar”
4. “Son of a Sinner”
5. “Amen”
6. “Bloodline” / “Wake Me Up”
7. “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” / “Wild Ones”
8. “Lonely Road” / “Take Me Home, Country Roads”
9. “I Am Not Okay”
10. “Where is the Love” / “Higher” / “No Scrubs” / “Drop it like it’s Hot” / “Killing in the Name” / “I Want It That Way”
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11. “Need a Favor”
12. “Save Me”
This story was originally published June 10, 2026 at 4:38 AM.
