On Tuesday, September 1, Ariana Grande took to the stage at London’s The O2 for the final night of The Eternal Sunshine Tour, bringing her first tour in seven years to a close. While a closing show naturally carries a certain emotional weight, on this particular night, that sense of finality could be felt in almost every minute of the performance.

Before Grande had even appeared on stage, the audience had already transformed the iconic arena into a living retrospective of her career. Fans arrived in elaborate looks inspired by her different musical eras, music videos, performances and albums, perfectly illustrating something she would later tell the crowd: “Thank you for being with me from Honeymoon Avenue to Hampstead.” The fact that fans can draw from such an extensive visual and musical history belonging to an artist barely into her thirties is, in itself, a testament to Grande’s status as a genuine pop superstar.

Inside The O2, that journey was brought to life through an elaborate audiovisual narrative. We watched Grande dance, move and become visibly emotional before eventually floating above the stage inside an imposing haunted house that gradually transformed as the night unfolded, filling with colour and flowers. The Eternal Sunshine Tour was never simply a concert punctuated by a handful of spectacular moments. Instead, it played out like a musical story with a beginning, middle and end, evolving organically alongside its protagonist.

At the centre of it all, once again, was her voice. Despite the emotion of the evening, and a minor foot injury that saw her swap her signature stilettos for knee-high platform boots, Grande remained vocally immaculate. Her emotions were visible throughout much of the concert, yet they never compromised the control or stability of her voice. If anything, they made the experience feel more immediate, personal and singular.

One of the night’s emotional peaks came during “One Last Time,” a song that has taken on particular significance for both Grande and her fans following the 2017 Manchester Arena attack. “London, I’m going to need you to help me on this one,” she told the crowd, dropping to her knees and allowing the arena to carry the song with her for a moment. It was in moments like this that the distance between global pop stars and audience seemed to disappear entirely.

There was still plenty of room for fun. The now-traditional mute challenge during “We Can’t Be Friends,” returned, and although London’s attempt was hardly a triumph in the silence department, Grande did not appear particularly surprised. Perhaps she understood that on the final night of such a long-awaited tour, restraint was never going to be one of the crowd’s strongest qualities.

One of the bigger surprises of the evening was, somewhat paradoxically, the absence of a celebrity guest. Speculation had intensified following Cynthia Erivo’s guest appearance at the August 16 show, but Grande ultimately seemed determined to close this chapter on her own terms. There was no headline-grabbing cameo or potentially distracting addition to the finale and perhaps that made the night even more powerful. Instead, she offered a surprise of a different kind, performing “nowhere, nobody,” from her latest album, Petal, live for the first time.

The emotion surrounding the evening hardly required much explanation. Grande had previously described this tour as her “last hurrah” before taking an extended step back from the public eye. While speculation had circulated around the reasons behind that decision, Grande herself has made it clear that stepping away was neither impulsive nor taken lightly, but something she had been considering for months.

So when the final lights went down inside The O2, it did not feel as though another concert had simply come to an end. A chapter Grande had spent years working towards had closed with it. The Eternal Sunshine Tour ultimately felt like more than an elaborate production designed to reaffirm Ariana Grande’s star power. It became her way of thanking the audience that had grown alongside her, while seemingly leaving behind elements of a public persona that no longer represent who she is today. That willingness to evolve, rather than simply preserve the version of yourself that made you famous, is one of the clearest signs of an artist with longevity.

For one final night, the pop star who first entered the public consciousness as a child performer on Broadway allowed us, in her unmistakably bubbly and distinctly Ariana way, to see just how far she had travelled, from Yours Truly all the way to Petal.

What we witnessed at The O2 Arena may have been a deeply emotional goodbye. Or perhaps it was something more hopeful: a promise of everything Ariana Grande still wants to explore in the next chapter of her artistic life.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see!