Perhaps more than any other performer of her generation (for the sake of argument, let’s consider her an elder Millennial), Kelly Clarkson has thoroughly endeared herself to America’s concert-going and television-watching public.  Heck, at this point, she’s basically Gen X’s little sister.  Between being the inaugural winner of American Idol, touring constantly over the past couple of decades, living in the public eye, and most recently hosting The Kelly Clarkson Show and serving as a coach on The Voice, Clarkson has earnestly worked her way into our eyes, our ears, and our hearts.  In fact, while Idol deserves credit for giving Clarkson visibility, Clarkson deserves at least as much credit for legitimizing television talent shows.  As Simon Cowell told Entertainment Weekly back in 2007, “She's not a girl who got lucky in a talent competition; we got lucky to find her.''

And she’d proven that there’s virtually nothing she can’t sing the bejeezus out of, to the point that the term “Kellyoke” has entered our lexicon.  Genres are like afterthoughts through which she bobs and weaves; with rock, pop, country, soul, R&B, and punk more akin to moods than rigid constructs.  To wit, she became the first artist to top Billboard’s pop, dance, adult contemporary, and country charts. 

Back in 2023, after attending one of the performances of Chemistry: An Intimate Evening with Kelly Clarkson (Clarkson’s previous blockbuster residency), The Music Universe’s Matt Bailey wrote, “There was no pomp, but it made the circumstances all the more special. No costume changes, no trapdoors. No gimmicks. Just the most powerful vocalist of a generation giving it all.”

Those sentiments can just as easily be applied to Clarkson’s latest Live Nation Las Vegas-produced residency, Kelly Clarkson: Studio Sessions in The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, which presents as an ersatz recording session in her studio and features no pre-recorded tracks.  In fact, Studio Sessions features more than 20 musicians and vocalists on stage throughout the show because, as Clarkson explained to the audience, “If there are seven guitars in a song, it’s hard to cover with two guitarists on stage.”

Don’t expect backup dancers, pyrotechnics, or wardrobe changes (except for the encore, for which on opening night, Clarkson ditched from her bedazzled Stevie Nicks t-shirt and flared black pants into an ivory gown in the style of Bob Mackie that channeled some of the great Las Vegas residency artists, like Cher and Diana Ross, but in a thoroughly Kelly kind of way).  Rather, Studio Sessions is all about the songs and the stories behind them, as a Kelly Clarkson residency should be.

As for the show’s two-hour duration, it’s due to Studio Sessions’s VH-1 Storytellers-like quality, as about 40 minutes of the two-hour show was Clarkson doing crowd work.  Whether telling the audience what went into a particular song or where her life was when she wrote it, taking a shot of tequila from an audience member and then giggling about it and referencing it throughout the evening, or just engaging in enthusiastic banter, Clarkson made it work.      

And while her monster hits, like “Catch My Breath,” Miss Independent,” “Since U Been Gone,” “My Life Would Suck Without You,” and “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)”—drew the most tremendous response from the audience, her catalogue’s deeper cuts fill out the setlist, beautifully. 

Opening night, she delivered a glorious “Kellyoke” cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” with some Whitney Houston stylings for added flavor.  Suffice it to say, she slayed.  Clarkson has announced that on each of the sixteen dates of her Studio Sessions residency, she would be performing a “Kellyoke” cover during her encore, and from what I understand, her cover of “Beggin’” by Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons (á la Måneskin, who famously rose to fame after covering it in 2017) was fantastic!

Frankly, I’m looking forward to somebody putting together a playlist of the sixteen “Kellyoke” tracks after the residency’s conclusion; though I’ll happily settle for the live Studio Sessions album, which Clarkson repeatedly teased throughout the show. 

Kelly Clarkson: Studio Sessions
The Colosseum | Caesars Palace
July 25, 26 | August 01, 02, 08, 09, 15, 16 | November 07, 08, 14, 15
Click HERE for tickets and info

Get into it!
#KCSS

The setlist on opening night (July 11, 2025) for Kelly Clarkson: Studio Sessions in the Colosseum at Caesars Palace was as follows:

1.   Me
2.   Walk Away
3.   Heat
4.   Dance With Me
5.   Behind These Hazel Eyes
6.   Heartbeat Song
7.   Breakaway
8.   Didn’t I
9.   Because of You
10. Mine
11. Catch My Breath
12. Beautiful Disaster
13. Piece by Piece [Heated Version 2.0]
14. Miss Independent
15. Sober
16. Favorite Kind of High
17. My Life Would Suck Without You
18. Tightrope
19. Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)

ENCORE:
20. Where Have You Been
21. I Will Always Love You (Kellyoke) [Dolly Parton cover]
22. Since U Been Gone