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A dozen songs in, the house lights went up, Carti left the stage and the screens told fans to back up, now in an effort to stop the crowd from pushing forward and crushing each other.

Again and again Monday night the house lights would come up at precisely the moment when you might’ve expected Bryan to strike some rock-god pose, drawing your eye instead to the thousands of others watching him watch them.

“House lights up,” the 43-year-old singer said in a video shared to TikTok.

But under the house lights each week on live TV, Johnson knows storylines are sold on his Hollywood heel persona.

That mirror point is driven home when during the aria “You want the story, but you don’t want to know,” the rich bass baritone of Kenneth Kellogg, as Malcolm, carries throughout McCaw Hall, and the house lights come up on the audience.