But the nerves are justified. While it is Clarkson’s 41st birthday and there’s plenty to celebrate — she is serenaded with “Happy Birthday” not once but twice by fans wearing party hats, as well as by her band and special guests — tonight is about more than Clarkson’s latest trip around the sun. Chemistry covers her seven-year marriage to Brandon Blackstock, which ended a few months into the pandemic and subsequently made her the focus of countless headlines as she endured a rather public divorce.

When she announced the Belasco show on social media, and even on her eponymous Emmy-winning daytime talk show when she first performed the single “Mine” in April, Clarkson admitted that she “went through a lot” and was “angry and sad” while writing the songs for her 10th LP, 14 tracks total. Visuals that have been released for it seem to confirm it: She is clad in black in various photos as well as on the album’s cover, an image of her in a pink dress that can be peeled away to each side to reveal her in a black one. On stage for her birthday show — which is being recorded to accompany other visuals she’ll put out with the record for a project that will take the place of traditional music videos — Clarkson maintains that mood, looking emo-regal in a flowy black dress that sweeps the floor, her blonde hair longer than what we’re used to seeing on her show, more like in the album art.