by Ifra Mahmood, staff reporter
American Music Awards kicked off live from Los Angeles Nokia Theater. The three hour long award show had 19 performances from popular artists such as Sam Smith, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, and Lorde .
On November 23rd, the show started off with the host, Pitbull, presenting the opening act, Taylor Swift, who performed her chart topping hit single “Blank Space” from her most recent album 1989. Swift was on the stage with a magician and performed with fire. Swift was also presented The Dick Clark Award of Excellence which was given to her by Diana Ross.
One Direction, took home three AMAs for favorite band, favorite pop/rock album (for their album Midnight Memories), and for artist of the year. After the group won the awards, they sang “Night Changes” from their new album FOUR.
“I really loved One Directions performance because their album was amazing and I was excited for their performance,” eighth grader Lauren Leto said.
Gomez got very emotional during her debut performance of her single “The Heart Wants What It Wants“. She was wearing a nude gown by Giorgio Armani. The song also had Swift, Gomez’s best friend, shedding tears as she erupted in a standing ovation.
“Selena Gomez’s performance was my favorite because she put her whole heart into the performance and it was different from all the other acts of the night because of the way she put an audio of her speaking in the beginning,” junior Marcella Orlando said.
Other performances included 5 Seconds of Summer performing a cover of “What I Like About You”. The boys even took home the award for favorite new artist of the year. Lorde performed “Yellow Flicker Beat” that is featured in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1.
Grande sang a medley of her popular songs such as “Love Me Harder”, with The Weeknd, and “Problem”. The show ended with energetic performances by Jessie J and Nicki Minaj with Ariana Grande and at last Jennifer Lopez singing “Booty”.
