Inside Bruno Mars’ opening-night gig at Inglewood’s new Intuit Dome

It probably wasn’t the primary time Bruno Mars performed his music “Billionaire” in entrance of an precise billionaire.

However because the pop-soul hitmaker sang about desirous to “purchase the entire issues I by no means had” not lengthy into his live performance Thursday night time at Inglewood’s new Intuit Dome, you couldn’t assist however scope out Steve Ballmer, who’d used his huge wealth to just do that by constructing a long-awaited house for his beloved Clippers basketball staff.

Sitting a couple of rows again from the stage in his signature light-blue button-down shirt, Ballmer clapped together with Mars’ peppy tune and fortunately obtained a spherical of back-slaps from the friends seated round him.

Thursday’s sold-out present, the primary of two on the area by Mars, served because the grand opening of Intuit Dome, a state-of-the-art area that price greater than $2 billion and can start internet hosting the Clippers in October (after years through which the staff shared downtown’s Crypto.com Area with the Lakers).

“Y’all, we’re a part of California historical past proper now,” Mars advised an viewers that included Jennifer Lopez, Angela Bassett, Courtney B. Vance, Ashton Kutcher and Simu Liu, amongst different celebrities.

As openings go, it had some bumps: Hyped prematurely for its high-tech touches, the venue’s entry-by-smartphone and opt-in facial-recognition programs weren’t working as deliberate Thursday, which led to an enormous bottleneck on the most important entrance because the constructing’s workers struggled to examine followers’ digital tickets one after the other. The present, which had been scheduled for 8 p.m., ended up beginning at 9:40; on social media, concertgoers complained about lengthy traces and a scarcity of clear signage and dependable Wi-Fi — hardly a tragedy, although embarrassing sufficient for a tech baron like Ballmer, who made a lot of his estimated $120-billion fortune as the pinnacle of Microsoft.

But if there’s one entertainer who can easy out a wrinkle, it’s Bruno Mars.

Performing within the Los Angeles space for the primary time since 2018, the 38-year-old singer placed on a two-hour show of the easy charisma and deep musical know-how which have earned him eight No. 1 singles, 15 Grammy Awards and gigs at not one however two Tremendous Bowl halftime reveals. He wore a silky purple bowling shirt and a neatly trimmed mustache with heavy ’70s-playboy vibes; he led the crack eight-piece band he calls the Hooligans like a suave mixture of James Brown, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. (Watching Mars, you’re by no means removed from remembering that he bought his begin in present enterprise as a pint-size Elvis impersonator in his native Hawaii.)

Mars’ music is a catalog of sturdy types — rock, pop, R&B, funk, reggae — and he provided up bits of every in songs just like the sweaty “Calling All My Lovelies,” which featured an prolonged comedic bit the place he pretended to name a lover on a gold-plated cellphone; the bubbling “Treasure,” which evoked the glory days of Earth, Wind & Hearth; and the swaggering “That’s What I Like,” into which he threw a little bit of salsa music simply to point out he might.

Close to the top of the present, he introduced out Woman Gaga — he referred to as her “pop royalty” — to premiere their brand-new duet, “Die With a Smile,” with Mars sporting a cowboy hat as he strummed a guitar and Gaga in an enormous beehive wig as she performed an electrical piano.

For Mars, who has spent a lot of the previous couple years performing in Las Vegas each on his personal and together with his and Anderson .Paak’s throwback-soul duo Silk Sonic, Thursday’s present was proof that, as rapidly as pop music evolves as of late, Mars’ old-school abilities stay worthwhile. When a fan on the ground wanted medical assist at one level, Mars had his band vamp for a couple of minutes as safety guards discovered the man and carried him out.

“That is what professionals do,” he stated with a smile as he steered the gamers again into the present.

And what of Intuit? L.A. already has loads of different venues this dimension, together with Crypto, the Hollywood Bowl and the Kia Discussion board, which Ballmer additionally owns and which sits only a mile up Prairie Avenue from the brand new constructing. But the room sounded nice Thursday: crisp and detailed with much less of the boominess you normally encounter in an area.

Mars nodded to Intuit’s location as he launched considered one of his earliest hits, “Nothin’ on You,” which he stated contained “the 4 chords that modified my life.”

“I used to stay not too removed from right here, driving round in my Honda Accord,” he stated, a little bit misty from the reminiscence. “I’ll always remember the day — I used to be rolling round right here and I heard this music on the radio.”