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You can picture them, can't you? The teen girls excitedly walking into the arena, finding their seats but only using the edge because they're so anxious about the concert that's going to start soon.

Most of the girls are in high school, or they were recently, or they will be soon. Some are accompanied by their moms or dads, and sometimes by kid sisters along for the ride.

These girls know the singer's music by heart. They know her backstory and how her struggles and heartbreak have been transformed into songs. They know her look and her confident attitude and some of them try to emulate it, from their hair to their boots.

The only thing more wonderful than being at this concert will be walking into school the next morning wearing the T-shirt they bought proving that they were here.

After what feels like forever, the house lights go down, and a united scream of 20,000 throats begins. The screaming scarcely stops for the next 90 minutes, as the star takes the stage.

Her outfit dazzles, with sequins or rhinestones or reflective leather throwing back the stage lighting aimed at her. She holds the microphone, shouts an enthusiastic "How are you, [name of city]?" and the screams will kick into high gear again. The first song begins, the throb of the drums and bass matching the tempo of the girls' racing heartbeats.

With every song, the singer's performance — her singing (live or Auto-Tuned), her dance moves, her costume changes — and the pyrotechnics around her deliver a clear, undeniable message to the girls in the arena: This could be you.

The singer was just like those girls once, nervous and unsure of herself. She deals with the same things they deal with: boys, friends and the drama of being on the cusp of adulthood. But look at her now, strong and in charge, an inspiration and role model for others.

She is the embodiment of girl power, and every girl will leave the arena feeling she has that power, too.

This is the scene one might encounter at any arena concert headlined by the likes of Taylor Swift or Demi Lovato or Selena Gomez or Ariana Grande. It's what girls in Salt Lake City's Vivint Smart Home Arena likely experienced when Grande played here in March. And it's probably how the girls in Manchester, England, felt Monday night, when Grande took her "Dangerous Woman" tour there.

Unfortunately, we know what they experienced after the show at Manchester Arena: A suicide bomber drove up, detonated an explosive device and took the lives of 22 people.

Some victims were parents picking up their kids from the show. Others were children and young adults, just out of the concert and, no doubt, still feeling the adrenaline rush from the show.

The girl power unleashed at a concert like this is a threat to a certain kind of extremist, who will go to irrational and brutal lengths to push back against it. Such extremism is not limited to one nationality, or one continent, or one faith — wherever you look, you'll find such fanaticism in one form or another.

What you'll also find, and what we saw in the news coverage from Manchester, is another type of power: kindness.

Stories abounded of neighbors offering shelter, social media relaying messages, cabdrivers giving free rides after the train stations shut down. A city responded to violence committed against it by banding together to show goodness.

That's the secret that the fanatics and extremists don't understand. Violence will leave its mark, but it will never win. Girl power — the positive forces of confidence, equality and unity — will ultimately win.

Sean P. Means writes The Cricket in daily blog form at http://www.sltrib.com/blogs/moviecricket. Follow him on Twitter @moviecricket. Email him at spmeans@sltrib.com.