AMAs 2016: Maroon 5, Kendrick Lamar perform ‘Don’t Wanna Know’ to close show

There are a few different performances during the American Music Awards that are always notable in terms of drawing big headlines, and we’d say typically that the opening number and the closing one are typically the ones that stand out the most.

We’ve already chronicled how the show opened with a performance of Bruno Mars’ “24K Magic,” and in closing the show, we had Maroon 5 joined by Kendrick Lamar for a performance of “Don’t Wanna Know,” their new hit single. It was just about everything that you would expect from a Maroon 5 performance, complete with the catchy vocals, the charisma, and the staging done in a way that drew you in.

Did we want a little bit more Kendrick? Absolutely, but we don’t quite know how you resolve that problem since he’s only in a small percentage of the song. Unless you were going to rework this into some sort of epic medley, what else was the show going to do? Overall, we would say that this was a worthy finish to the show, but given that it was the closing number, we almost preferred that we had more of a large-scale Maroon 5 tribute so that they could play through a lot of their various hits over the years in the span of just 10 or so minutes. These are the sort of performances that are extremely memorable after the fact.

If there is one thing that we clearly don’t love about the way in which the show ended, it is the announcer proclaiming “you’ve just witnessed an epic T-Mobile finale.” We know that corporate branding is important for funding the show and whatnot, but this makes the entire performance before it feel almost sponsored and not organic.

What did you think about the finale? Grade in the poll below!

You can get a few other headlines from the American Music Awards without delay by heading over to the link here! (Photo: ABC.)