Charlie Puth Brings Kenny Loggins Onstage at Santa Barbara Bowl
charlie puth used the Santa Barbara Bowl stop on Saturday night to turn a tour date into a hometown-adjacent moment. The Montecito resident made the third stop on his Whatever's Clever! tour feel local when he brought Kenny Loggins onstage late in the set.
Santa Barbara Bowl on Saturday
Puth centered the show around a white upright piano and moved between keys and vocals while the arrangements leaned into bass and percussion. The set pulled from R&B, jazz and soul, and he worked in “How Long,” “Attention” and “We Don’t Talk Anymore” as the crowd took in a show framed by a 360-degree view of the Pacific Ocean.
He also told the audience, “The more vulnerable I am, the more colorful the art gets,” before adding, “I want all of you to leave here inspired to make that art.”
Love in Exile at the Bowl
Puth introduced “Love in Exile” as a track from his new album recorded with Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald, then brought Loggins out late in the set. The crowd stood up when Loggins came onstage, which gave the moment a sharper local edge than a standard guest appearance.
That local link was hard to miss: Puth is a Montecito resident, and Loggins is a Santa Barbara singer. Puth also named Pierre Lafond, Bettina, Renaud's and La Super-Rica Taqueria as favorite local haunts, folding the show deeper into the geography of the coast rather than treating the stop like a generic tour date.
From Super Bowl to Album
The Santa Barbara date landed after Puth sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl earlier in the year and after he released his fourth studio album last month. At the Bowl, he leaned on the new material without making the set feel like a promotional stop, which is the right call when an artist is still early in a tour and trying to sell the live version of the record.
He closed that thread with a line that fit the venue as much as the music: “What place in the world can you go to a concert and get a 360-degree view of the Pacific Ocean?” He answered his own question a beat later: “That's pretty amazing. We live in a pretty amazing place, don't we?”
For readers following the tour, the takeaway is simple: the Santa Barbara Bowl show established the live identity of Whatever's Clever! early, and Loggins gave this date a regional distinction that the next stops will have to earn on their own.
