On Friday, March 10th, on the eve of Spring Break, I attended Sza’s concert in Dallas. I have been listening to Sza since 2015, when I heard her featured on Rihanna’s album “Anti”. In 2017, Sza released her debut studio album called “Ctrl”. This album resinated with so many people, that she’d gained so many more fans in the last six years. Her music also gained popularity on TikTok, since snippets of her songs were sped up for FYP trends. I think social media has been a great help in getting Sza to release more music, especially when fans began uploading her unreleased music on TikTok. This caused Sza to officially release songs like, “Awkward” and “2AM,” on the Deluxe version of “Ctrl” last Summer.
I think the best thing about Sza’s fans is that there are a lot of inside jokes that the fan base has, like how Sza lies a lot. When Sza first stated she was releasing new music, I remember seeing threads on Twitter, where fans went over a whole discourse on whether or not they thought she was lying again. I like that the Sza plays into the jokes by saying she’s never owned a TV, or has never eaten cake before.
Last Friday, I went to class as usual, and anticipated what the concert would be like. I remember seeing that Sza’s Ctrl tour was smaller, and she got to be more personal with her fans, so I was wondering how this one would go since she’d become more popular since “Ctrl”. After my last class, I went home and got ready for the concert, the same way girls get ready for their first prom. It took me like two hours until I was done, but I ended up wearing a shirt with Sza’s face on it, that i had ordered last year.
On my way to Dallas, I got to stop by Buc-ee’s for a quick snack, since I had not time to eat. I ended up at the venue about thirty minutes before Omar Apollo’s set went on. I couldn’t wait to see hime either, because I had been listening to him since 2017. When Omar went on, he started of with his sonf “Useless” off of his album, “Apolonio.”
The songs I enjoyed hearing most from his set were: “Endlessly”,”Invincible”, and “Tamagotchi”. The visuals for Endlessly were super cool, and I think that everyone should see Omar live, because he’s just an amazing performer. I really wanted to see him in concert before, when he went on tour with the singer, Ravyn Lenae, but this made up for the missed opportunity. Also, his hit song, “Evergreen”, was even more beautiful live. It was nice to hear everyone in the room singing along with him. I also love that he gave a shoutout to all the Mexican in the room seeing him, because it was nice to see that he carries this sense of pride for his community. He is the first Queer, Latino I’ve ever seen in concert, and I’m so happy to my own representation live.
About fifteen minutes after Omar’s set was done, Sza came on staged. This was the moment I had been waiting for, and there she was. Sza had the best visuals I have ever seen. She opened the show by sitting on a set plank, like on her album cover. I honestly feel like I recorded the whole concert because each song sounded so good live. The stigma held against Sza’s live performances is wrong, because she sounded too good! Her choreography, vocals, and venue were great the entire show. Everyone was standing up and singing along to each of her songs. She sang songs from both her albums like, “Supermodel”, “Drew Barrymore”, “Broken Clocks”, “SOS”, “Blind”, “Prom”, and “Too Late”. My favorite songs to hear live were, “Garden (Say It Like Dat)”, and her cover of “Bag Lady” by Erykah Badu. “Mama’s Gun” by Erykah Badu is my most favorite album, so I was most excited to that during her performance. I also noticed Sza used similar visuals to Erykah while she’s sitting in the raft above fans. I think the most beautiful part of her performance was when she was sitting on the boat above everyone. I was sitting in close to the nosebleed seats, but I think it worker out fine, because I got a good view of the prop lighthouse spinning while Sza sang on the boat. The lights and fog that were floating underneath her made it seem like she was really on moving water. Once she got on the boat, t made the atmosphere feel more close and intimate, even though we were in a huge venue.
To close off the show, Sza ended with the song “The Weekend”, and encored with “Good Days”. She later came back out to thank the crowd for coming to see her, and greeted some family members who showed up for her performance. The only thing I wished she had done was bring out Phoebe Bridgers to perform “Ghost in the Machine”, like she had done for her MSG show, or perform “Open Arms”. Besides that, I am very content with the entire show! I t was the best first concert to attend this new year, and I recommend that everyone tries to see her perform at least once in their lives!