Known for her bright, red hair and even brighter personality on the show “Victorious,” Ariana Grande came to the American Airlines Center on April 1, for her first North American headlining “Honeymoon Tour.”

Most people see Grande as a pint-size kid with a powerful voice, but she is so much more than that. I have never seen a young artist with as much stage presence as her. Grande had two opening acts: Cashmere Cat and Rixton.

I missed out on Cashmere Cat, but I did get to see the band Rixton perform. Originally, I wasn’t that excited to hear that Rixton was her opening act. I don’t know how she chooses, but I think she could have picked a better group or solo artist than them. Unless you are a fan of the group, you more than likely only knew two songs out of their whole set. They were only up on stage for 30 minutes but they used their time very wisely.

The lead singer Jake Roche definitely knew how to keep a crowd entertained. The one thing I loved about their performance was the interaction with the crowd. They all jumped off the stage and ran around the arena. You could tell they just wanted to put a smile on the audiences’ faces. At the end of their performance, I can say that my opinion on them changed drastically. I look forward to seeing big things from them in the future.

Now after Rixton performed it was this long waiting period of at least another 30 minutes before Grande would come on. In the meantime, I danced around with my friends to the music playing through the speakers, but besides that I tried to look behind stage from my seat to see Grande’s back-up dancers. I felt like I was on the “inside” because I got to see them warm-up and everything. I started to get antsy because I was about to see my idol live on stage. It was around 9 p.m. when I finally saw her walk backstage. I flipped out, that’s when the countdown started.

Finally she was on stage and I couldn’t help but have this big smile across my face. Everyone in the arena began to flip out when she opened the concert with a “bang” by singing the major hit “Bang Bang.” After each song the concert got better and better because she was feeding off the energy of the audience. Grande is really thankful for her fans or “Arianators” and she made that really evident at the concert. She would stop and kneel down and touch hands with audience members.

One thing that made me really happy was when she was singing to a person down in the audience and she would start giggling. Another thing is when she sat down with her dancers, started thanking us for being there and complimenting us on how cute we are. There were a lot of songs that were duets, so she had the other artist on the big screen with a recording of them singing or rapping their part.

This was a very upbeat concert, but there were those “awe” moments, especially when she had the video of her Grandpa’s words to her. The concert ended with “Problem” and the only problem I had was that it was over.

Overall, the concert was amazing. I knew she wouldn’t disappoint because she is an amazing performer. The only negative was the break between the opening acts and Grande, but that didn’t matter once she got on stage. This concert will show everyone what Grande is really capable of.