Miley Cyrus kicked off her Miley: Bass Persuades – Live at the Hollywood Bowl shows on Friday night, turning a venue she has long watched from the seats into the place where she finally took the stage. It was her first headlining performance in years, and the start of a two-night run that will bring her back to the Hollywood Bowl again on Sunday.
The timing matters because Cyrus has spent much of the last decade away from full-scale touring. She has not done a full-fledged tour since Bangerz in 2014, and she told British Vogue in 2023 that she decided to take a break from touring after that run. When she announced the Hollywood Bowl dates in early September, she said the venue is her favorite place to experience music and see her favorite artists, adding that it had been a while and that LA was her heart.
That makes the Friday show more than a one-off date on the calendar. It reads as a rare return to major headlining work for an artist who still clearly likes to perform but has also said she does not want to live her life for anyone else’s pleasure. Last month, she told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe that she would be more open to residencies and called the Bowl shows the ultimate dress rehearsal, a line that fits the shape of the night: not a full tour relaunch, but a test of how much stage she wants without giving up the freedom she has kept since 2014.
There is still one thing fans will be watching for. The pair of Hollywood Bowl dates was announced together, but the only confirmed detail so far is that Friday opened the run and Sunday is next. What Cyrus sang across the full setlist has not been laid out in the facts available here, which leaves the performance itself as the main reason the show landed the way it did: as a rare, very public sign that she is willing to meet an audience again on her own terms.
