As Harvard graduate Maggie Rogers sat at her piano last night, she spoke about her time at the prestigious university and how it influenced her preparation for her current arena tour. "I feel like I've been preparing for this show for three years," Rogers told the Boston audience as they hung on to her every word. In 2021, Rogers spent a semester at Harvard Divinity School, where she studied the spirituality of public gatherings. As part of her studies, Rogers attended a multitude of concerts in the Boston area, including several at TD Garden.

"I wanted to see what it looked like to put on a show in this arena," Rogers said. She continued: "So much of this show has been designed based on my time in Cambridge," part of her reason for pursuing the degree she did was to examine the relationships of religion, spirituality, and pop culture from the vantage point of a performing artist. All this has come together to shape the way Rogers approaches being an artist performing and speaking to crowds of 15,000 plus people as she makes her way across the US this fall.

In April, Rogers released her third studio album, Don't Forget Me, via Capitol Records; some of the songs on the album were written during her time in Cambridge. For the live show, she's designed a magical stage production that begins with an introduction video before she rises from beneath a stage thrust while singing the song's opening number, "That's Where I Am." During the first song, she wore a glittery cape reminiscent of something Stevie Nicks would wear in the 1970s.

She breezed through most of her first twelve songs, only briefly stopping to address the crowd. But what the early portion of the show lacked in banter, Rogers' incredible confidence on stage made up for. During the spoken word interlude on "So Sick of Dreaming," she replaced a New York Knicks reference in the song with a Boston Celtics reference, paying tribute to the team's home arena in which she was playing.

For "Love You For a Long Time," the show's video feed was turned onto the audience for a kiss cam feature, the likes of which you'd expect to see on the jumbotron at Fenway.

Rogers would interpolate a short cover of Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly With His Song" with her own track "Dog Years" off her 2017 EP Now That the Light is Fading.

Her longest address to the crowd came during the aforementioned piano portion of the show when she spoke about her time in the area during her semester at Harvard. She also dedicated a short cover of One Direction's "Night Changes" to the recently departed Liam Payne, who passed away on Wednesday.

After playing a stripped-down version of "All the Same" with her band at the end of her stage thrust, she launched into a half acoustic/half electric version of her popular tune "Alaska." Rogers would wrap up her main set with a one-two punch of "Fallingwater" and "Light On," the latter of which she invited the audience to turn their cell phone lights on, which the sold-out crowd happily obliged.

Rogers returned for a one-song encore, performing her latest album's title track, "Don't Forget Me."

It was very evident throughout the night how much work Rogers had put into preparing for this arena tour. Her time at Harvard was well spent and undoubtedly contributed to her ability to confidently command a sold-out crowd of nearly 18,000 people.

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