Concert review: Despite sexually charged new image, Sam Smith still sang sad songs at Xcel Energy Center

When the lights went out at the start of Sam Smith’s concert Wednesday night at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center, red horn-shaped lights littered the crowd of about 10,000.

Smith, who uses them/they pronouns, has been exploring their devilish side as of late and was selling light-up horn crowns at their merch tables. Prior to the release of Smith’s fourth album “Gloria,” they announced they had taken creative control over the record and its various promotions, including the current tour.

That has meant gender bending and provocative outfits and music videos that sometimes come across as ridiculous rather than revolutionary. Both the album cycle and Wednesday’s show culminated with “Unholy,” a sexually charged song they wrote and recorded with pop singer Kim Petras. It hit No. 1 and won a Grammy, firsts for both the nonbinary Smith and trans Petras. At the Grammys, the pair delivered a campy, Satan-themed performance that had some online right-wingers whipped up in a rage. It was all great fun, but Lil Nas X already did the whole devil thing two years ago, and he did it better.

Whatever the case, for all their newfound artistic freedom, the truth is that at their core, Smith still mostly makes sad songs for divorced ladies and melodramatic teenagers. They took Adele’s intensely personal approach and powerful voice and sanded off all the rough edges to create music so perfect it loses any real heart and soul.

So despite an oversize stage prop of the Greek goddess Aphrodite that Smith and their dancers writhed on and around, a series of increasingly over-the-top costume changes that began with Smith wearing a corset over a shirt and tie and an overall aura of attempted debauchery, in the end this was yet another evening of Smith singing a bunch of slow ballads. It took Smith six songs to get to the first vaguely upbeat number, 2020’s “Diamonds.”

Things didn’t really start to pick up until about an hour in, when Smith offer the one-two punch of his Calvin Harris collaboration “Promises” and “I’m Not Here To Make Friends,” easily the best song on “Gloria.”

For their part, Smith spent much of the evening grinning widely, even during the direst ballads. This is a person who clearly enjoys both singing and all of the pomp and circumstance of a concert like this. Smith has never sounded better, either. Earlier in their career they sometimes lapsed into belting, but Smith has grown into their voice and found new corners of emotion and warmth. Their stage banter felt canned — Smith has been telling crowds each night to make some friends and take off your tops — yet one doesn’t doubt for a second Smith means it when they tell the audience they love them.

The crowd loved every minute of it and loudly sang along to the choruses of the first three songs, all from their 2014 debut “In the Lonely Hour” — “Stay with Me,” “I’m Not the Only One” and “Like I Can.” And they lost it when Smith ripped off their own top during a cover of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love.”

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