Review: At Paramore’s tour debut in Charlotte, a fan almost stole the show. But then ...

Paramore took the wraps off of its 2023 North American arena tour on Tuesday night at Charlotte’s Spectrum Center, and as would seem fitting for such an occasion, the rock band fronted by Hayley Williams brought along a few new tricks.

These included:

• Minor-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things tweaks to the setlist it’s been crafting while playing in Europe and at festivals that will still register as pretty significant to hard-core fans, like the live debuts of songs “Big Man, Little Dignity” and “Figure 8” from “This Is Why,” the new studio album Paramore released in February.

• Williams’ ever-changing hair color, which arrived on stage here as a shade of golden-blonde that made her look more like Beth Dutton on “Yellowstone” than I could have imagined possible.

• The silly yet still kind of cool gimmick known as the “Paramoat,” a special VIP area that suddenly opened up behind and beneath Zac Farro’s drum kit for a select handful of ecstatic fans right before the two-song encore.

But the best tricks trotted out by Williams, Farro and guitarist Taylor York for their band’s first show in Charlotte in almost six years were the old tricks.

And I don’t necessarily mean to tell you that I prefer the old songs — though it’s certainly hard to beat light-’n’-airy 2014 hit “Ain’t It Fun” when it comes to music that makes you want to flop your arms around like one of those inflatable tube men at the car dealership; and it’s definitely tough to top 2007 pop-punk banger “Misery Business” when it comes to tracks that can instantly turn you into a human Bobblehead.

What I mean is that Paramore performances are at their best when it’s just Paramore up there doing Paramore things. Or, perhaps to be more specific, Williams on stage doing Williams things.

Despite the fact that the new show features six other people on stage with her (the group on tour is rounded out by backing musicians Joey Howard, Joey Mullen, Logan MacKenzie and Brian Robert Jones), Williams will always be the main attraction for everyone except maybe her bandmates’ relatives or close friends.

Even then, under interrogation, they’d probably admit to spending most of their time with their eyes glued to the 34-year-old singer.

She’s that captivating.

At the sold-out Charlotte show, her striking outfit — a cobalt-blue, double-breasted, collared silk top with color-matched boyshorts and eyeshadow, and gold heels — surely helped.

But more generally speaking, I think it’s her hyperactivity that’s so transfixing. Her tendency to whirl from one side of the stage to the other like a dervish. To kick at the air, to twirl in circles with her arms outstretched, to whip her hair so violently that her face gets lost in a sea of it. To do jumping jacks, literally, while belting the chorus of “That’s What You Get.” Or to incorporate styles of dance into the ska- and reggae-tinged “Caught in the Middle” that careen, in a matter of seconds, from something resembling a martial-arts teacher’s kata to something resembling how a blissed-out clown might react to suddenly hearing his favorite song.

Every move Williams makes seems at once carefully calculated and joyously spontaneous.

The only section of the show that settled her down (i.e. kept her standing still, mostly, and in one place, mostly) over the course of the band’s two-hour, 22-song set came almost exactly midway through:

After excusing herself at the end of “Big Man, Little Dignity,” she reappeared with Farro and York to perform new song “Liar” a few moments later on an elevated B-stage, their silhouettes cast against the glow of a small screen behind them that played video of drifting clouds. Her hands drifted, too, as if controlled by a gentle puppet master, and her knees bounced just slightly as she delivered the song’s dreamy vocals. But otherwise Williams stayed glued to a mic stand that stayed glued to the floor.

The staging for the next song — “Crystal Clear,” a deep cut from her 2020 solo debut album ”Petals for Armor” — was identical. However, her legs seemed to be getting more restless.

So, when that side quest ended, Williams was again on the move, boogey-ing her way through “Hard Times” before punctuating its last line (“And I gotta get to rock bottom”) by dropping to her knees then leaning back till her head touched the floor to complete a classic rock-star pose.

Fans in Charlotte ate it up. And she seemed to eat the fans in Charlotte up right back.

At one point, Williams joked, “We should start every tour here, maybe. ... Even, like, Europe dates, we just — we start in North Carolina.” At another, she gushed, “I don’t know how we’re gonna keep going on this tour, and anything could ever top this show. I’m serious!”

Of course, sucking up to crowds isn’t just a time-honored Paramore tradition. It’s something almost all artists do, and it’s a fairly rote move. But there is one standard Paramore play that’s frequently pretty fun. And in Charlotte, on the band’s first night of its North American tour, it worked about as awesomely as it ever has.

It goes a little something like this:

For as long as fans can remember, Williams has pulled an audience member (or sometimes two, or even three) on stage in the middle of performing their early hit “Misery Business,” and then that fan (or fans) helps the singer finish the song. The song was famously — infamously? — retired in 2018 because the band didn’t think it aged well, due in large part to a lyric Williams wrote in which another woman is referred to as a “whore.”

She un-retired it, somewhat grudgingly, last year after caving to pleas from Billie Eilish; the two duetted on the song at the Coachella music festival. Williams has since come around, basically deciding “Misery” represents a chapter of her life she can now appreciate, and fans have welcomed back the hit with open arms and pumping fists.

So, on Tuesday night at Spectrum Center, dozens of fans showed up with signs that served as appeals to Williams to let them help her take care of “Business.”

As Williams interrupted herself right before the song’s bridge to scan the offerings, most of those that were flashed up on the big screen seemed to be lacking the “It” factor. They ranged from “Misery Business? I’ve been practicing since I was 8” to “Alf says Please” to “Paramore is why I still leave my house (Miz Biz).“

But one caught her eye: “22nd try’s the charm?? Plz!!”

“You have come to 22 shows and I’ve never picked you, is that what you’re saying?” Williams shouted at the fan holding it, and when she asked the rest of the crowd what they thought of the candidate, a cheer went up. “Twenty-two shows! That’s a lot of Paramore shows. I mean, it’s not as many Paramore shows as I’ve been to. ... (But) it’s a lot.”

A few moments later, the woman the song belonged to was hoisted up from the pit onto the stage, looking both very nervous and very excited.

The fan, later identified as Jerée Reyna of New York City, was treated to a quick selfie with Williams to commemorate the occasion — and it was the to-die-for type of rock-star selfie, with Williams holding the phone and the arena crowd in the background. Reyna was carrying a bag embossed with the words “We Are All Paramore,” and Williams asked her, “You want me to take your bag and put it right here so you can rock out?”

Reyna handed her the bag.

“So you know the song?” Williams asked.

“I know the song,” Reyna replied.

“You’re practiced,” Williams said. “You’re ready.”

Reyna looked maybe twice as nervous as she looked excited, but she nodded. “I’m ready.”

Then the band kicked up the frenzy that is the “Misery Business” bridge and Reyna kicked up her foot with the type of authority that Williams had been kicking up her foot with all night long, then belted into the mic:

I watched his wildest dreams come true

Not one of them involving you

Just watch my wildest dreams come true

Not one of them involving

As streamers exploded from the rafters and the crowd roared, Williams joined Reyna on a second mic and the two charged through the final chorus, kicking and punching at the air in front of each other in near-perfect synchronicity, whipping their hair so violently that their faces got lost in seas of it.

Every move they both made seemed at once carefully calculated and joyously spontaneous.

The song crescendoed — “’Cause God, it just feels so” — and Williams shouted “Jerée!!” — right before the last line: “It just feels so good.”

They embraced. Reyna didn’t look nervous anymore. Williams looked slightly stunned.

“Ready!?” the Paramore singer said, shaking her head. “Had that in the bag, ready. Damn. Jerée. This is Jerée’s show. I don’t know what show you came to, but this is Jerée’s show now.” The crowd was rapturous. In that instant, it felt like this could have been the perfect ending to a perfect Paramore concert.

Not two seconds after she uttered the words “This is Jerée’s show now,” however, Jerée was gone and the show was Williams’ again.

“We are not finished, my friends. ... You still got your dancin’ shoes on up there?” Williams asked no one in particular as she looked toward one of the upper levels, smiling. “Still got a little left?”

They did. She did, too. Plenty. So the band played on, and even if Jerée had made us lose sight of this fact for a minute or two, it quickly reminded us — as Williams twirled, jumped, shimmied and shook, and as fans in Charlotte ate it all up — that Paramore performances are at their best when it’s just Paramore up there.

Doing Paramore things.

Paramore’s setlist

1. “You First”

2. “The News”

3. “That’s What You Get”

4. “Playing God”

5. “Caught in the Middle”

6. “Rose-Colored Boy”

7. “Running Out of Time”

8. “Decode”

9. “Last Hope”

10. “Big Man, Little Dignity”

11. “Liar”

12. “Crystal Clear”

13. “Hard Times”

14. “Told You So”

15. “Figure 8”

16. “The Only Exception”

17. “Baby” (Zac Farro, singing a HalfNoise song)

18. “Crave”

19. “Misery Business”

20. “Ain’t It Fun”

Encore:

21. “Still Into You”

22. “This Is Why”