As Joe Jonas emotionally cried out the lyrics of his and his brothers’ 2019 song “Hesitate,” it was clear that this stop on the Jonas Brothers’ international tour, dubbed “The Tour,” felt different for all three of the former Disney Channel stars on stage. The song, written mainly by Joe himself, was written as a dedication song to his wife, “Game of Thrones” actress Sophie Turner. The song was a hallmark of the brothers’s return to the spotlight in 2019 and how all three were now married men, even while most of their discography was written while they were teenagers. But it was clear that Joe was genuinely hesitating, to put it lightly, in singing this typically emotional ballad to fans at the Footprint Center in downtown Phoenix last Wednesday night.
Earlier that morning, it was confirmed on Instagram by both Joe and Sophie that they had mutually decided to call it quits after four years of marriage and asked the public to “respect our privacy for both us and our children.” The star-studded couple have two children, ages three and one respectively, and will soon be undergoing a custody battle as Sophie looks to move back to her home nation of England with her family. However, Joe has been alongside his children, even as he and his brothers continue to perform and tour across the country for the rest of 2023 and soon to Europe and Australia in 2024.
It was a rollercoaster of a week for Joe, to say the least. He was seen wearing his wedding ring on stage as he and his brothers performed in Austin on Monday, and the next day, just one day before the brothers’ stop in Phoenix on Wednesday, Joe was back in his hometown of Miami, officially filing his and Sophie’s divorce papers.
Nevertheless, Joe and his brothers were able to perform the regular daunting 64-song setlist Wednesday, including not only songs like “Hesitate” but other emotional, romantic ballads of the brothers’ discography like 2007’s “When You Look Me In The Eyes,” 2008’s “Lovebug” and “Sorry,” and 2009’s “Don’t Speak.” Joe appeared to be pushing through the night mentally through the lyrics he and his brothers wrote nearly 15 years ago.
When the setlist arrived at Joe’s other band, DNCE, and their party anthem, “Cake by the Ocean,” Joe looked his most free emotionally. As he danced and screamed at the top of his lungs, it was clear to the audience of die-hard fans, many of whom had seen him and his brothers grow over the years, that this very moment was one that Joe would take to heart as he sang and demanded the sold-out crowd to do the same.
The Jonas Brothers took their sold-out Phoenix crowd through a trip down memory lane, regardless of the drama surrounding the middle child of the trio. As an emotional Joe and his brothers powered through their gauntlet of songs, it was clear that even with the drama discussed amongst fans both in the crowd and around the world, the boys from Jersey who forged their careers at Disney in the late ’00s did what they came to do. As they would say, they “played their music all night long.”