With just two full-length albums to her credit, SZA was nonetheless able to deliver a masterclass on how to put on a thoroughly entertaining and engaging concert on Tuesday night at an absolutely packed Oakland Arena.
The show was visually stunning and resonated emotionally from start to finish. There was a well-developed theme to the production and a sense of purpose to basically everything happening on the stage. SZA’s vocal work was brilliant and she exuded not just superstar power, but also the kind of aura that can only come when an artist has just taken her career to a towering new level.
Whoa.
It’s almost scary to think where this 33-year-old soul singer can go from here.
But why rush things? As it currently stands, SZA is touring with what appears to be the show to beat in 2023.
The sold-out Oakland gig was SZA’s second big performance in the Bay Area over the last sevenths months or so. The first came when she delivered a headlining set at the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in August.
Some initially questioned the move to hand an OSL headliner slot to an artist who was, at the time, a little more than five years removed from releasing her sole full-length album. Yet, the decision ended up looking like a stroke of genius, as SZA — who had just recently recovered from COVID — – put on a great show at the festival and then followed up with the release of the blockbuster sophomore full-length “SOS” in December.
The album debuted at No. 1 on the charts and stayed there for seven consecutive weeks, reportedly becoming the first R&B outing to accomplish that feat since Whitney Houston’s second album, 1987’s “Whitney.” It’s now logged 10 nonconsecutive weeks at the top and currently sits at No. 2, just behind Morgan Wallen’s newly released “One Thing at a Time.” (Wallen actually has two offerings in the top 10 — the other being “Dangerous: The Double Album” at No. 6.)
The fans couldn’t have been more fired up for this show, something that was made abundantly clear when the lights dimmed and a huge roar went up from the mostly young, female crowd that filled the arena to its absolute brim.
The first image fans were greeted with was a large body of water shown on a video screen, which was soon hoisted high to reveal the star of the evening sitting on a diving board/plank like on the cover of the “SOS” album. She’d croon through “PSA” — actually one of the bonus cuts from the expanded edition of “SOS” — and then the screen was lowered again, allowing for a video version of SZA’s silhouette to dive into the water.
The New Jersey-raised vocalist then reappeared in a seaside dock setting, boogying alongside four dancers and accompanied by musicians performing from both sides of the stage. The music itself sounded great, providing SZA with what she needed to convincingly reincarnate those studio gems on the live stage.
She stayed on a brisk pace as she continued through more than two dozen songs over the next roughly 1½ hours, touching most heavily upon “SOS” but also including a goodly amount from her first full-length, 2017’s “Ctrl,” as well as other material.
Perhaps the best moment in the H2O-themed show — which included a lengthy segment with a full-size ship onstage — came when she boarded a dinghy that was then lifted by cables high over concertgoers’ heads. She’d sing three of the best numbers of the night from that perch — “Special,” “Gone Girl” and “Nobody Gets Me.” The latter was a true standout, delivered with such aching tenderness and emotion.
SZA was then lowered back down to the stage — which was now decked out in an underwater/aquarium theme — to showcase her considerable rapping skills on the “SOS” title track as well as belt out the major fan favorites as “Kill Bill” and “I Hate U” before bringing the main set to close.
She’d return for an encore, bringing the show full circle as she appeared once again on the “SOS” diving board, this time to conclude the magnificent concert with “Good Days.”
Singer SZA performs in concert at the Oakland Arena in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, March. 14, 2023. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
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