(Photo by Chris Tuite)
I’ve always had a soft spot for Concord Pavilion, before that when it had a different corporate sponsor attached to the name, and through every era in between. It’s one of the few large amphitheaters in the Bay Area where the setting is genuinely part of the experience. Nestled into the hills, the venue manages to feel intimate despite its size, and there really isn’t a bad seat in the house. Whether you’re up close or stretched out on the lawn, the rolling landscape behind the stage becomes part of the evening.
It’s also a venue that seems to have finally solved one of its longest running headaches. Before COVID, getting out of Concord after a concert could be an exercise in patience. Anyone who attended enough midweek shows remembers the routine: people would spend all night drinking, then linger in the parking lot waiting for AAA, creating a traffic nightmare that could drag on for hours. The venue’s shuttle service from Concord BART has changed that dramatically. I’ve used it several times, but this trip was especially impressive. We rode out in a comfortable suburban shuttle and returned on what was essentially a party bus stocked with free water. More importantly, it works. Even if you’ve had a cocktail or two during the show, there’s enough time between the concert ending and getting back to BART that nobody feels rushed to get behind the wheel. In an era when every venue talks about transportation and safety, Concord Pavilion has actually come up with a practical solution.
My concert partner and I boarded the comfortably air-conditioned shuttle and immediately found ourselves surrounded by exactly the crowd you’d hope to see at a Kesha show: impeccably groomed gay men, a healthy assortment of queers, and a few excited groups of women already treating the ride like the opening act. A rolling preparty, and before long, we were dropped directly at the front concourse.
My listening ticket was perfectly positioned near the soundboard with an unobstructed view of the stage and enough distance to appreciate the full production. As is often the case, some of the most entertaining moments of the evening happened before the headliner ever appeared.
To my right sat a mom and her seven year-old daughter who, according to mom, had demanded they attend the concert. The tickets had been purchased that very day, a parenting decision I can stand behind. To my left were two women in their early twenties whose enthusiasm level could only be described as professional.
Kesha was first introduced to me around 2010 by one of my younger employees. I immediately understood the appeal. The songs were funny, self-aware, catchy as hell, and didn’t take themselves too seriously. I loved the humor of it all. But for whatever reason, I never went much deeper than that.
As the years went by, I found myself hearing less of her music and more whispers about her career. Stories about abuse, control, exploitation, and legal battles seemed to become the narrative surrounding Kesha. Suddenly, this artist, who had been packaged as a carefree pop star, was carrying an incredibly heavy story.
I don’t walk into this article claiming to be a Kesha expert. In fact, that’s probably part of why this concert interested me. My relationship with her music has always felt somewhat incomplete.
What changed that was Eat the Acid.
Looking back, it’s oddly similar to how I became a fan of Miley Cyrus. Sure, there was the impossible to ignore “Wrecking Ball” video, something that exists somewhere between queer camp, performance art, and Grecian mythology, but the Miley album that truly hooked me was Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz.
Both …Dead Petz and Eat the Acid feel like full stops in enormous pop careers. Albums where an artist steps away from expectations and makes something more personal. Eat the Acid felt vulnerable in a way that surprised me. It was less interested in hooks and punchlines than much of the Kesha music I’d heard before. Likewise, everyone knows “Party in the U.S.A.,” but there is something far more revealing about hearing Miley sing earnestly about a dead puffer fish she loved. Both records require patience and understanding.
Maybe that’s why I kept my distance from Kesha for so long. The drama surrounding her career felt intrusive. As someone who listens to music obsessively, I want to encounter an artist through their work rather than through the worst thing that has happened to them. In Kesha’s case, the public conversation often felt bigger than the songs themselves.
From what I understand, this tour continues the work she began on her most recent records, a process of reclaiming ownership over her music, her image, and her creative voice. Whether that means rewriting, rerecording, producing, or simply standing onstage without anyone else’s agenda attached to her work, the result feels significant. There was something powerful about walking into Concord Pavilion and taking part in a reclamation ritual.
In the weeks leading up to the show, I’d been reading about softer ticket sales across the industry. Whether it’s political exhaustion, frustration with Ticketmaster, rising costs, or the reality that most families are tightening their budgets, concerts have increasingly become a luxury purchase. Depending on the household, a night at a show may be competing with everything from a weekend getaway to Botox appointments to the decision to buy actual bacon instead of Bacos.
So as the sun dipped behind the hills and the crowd settled into their seats, I found myself wondering how an artist who had chosen vulnerability over pure pop spectacle would translate that evolution to an amphitheater stage.
The answer arrived on a pair of angel wings.
When Kesha emerged, she did so wearing a spectacular set of wings that looked impossibly expensive yet somehow handmade at the same time. They were theatrical without feeling costume-like, and more impressively, she moved in them effortlessly. The front sections immediately transformed into something resembling a pre-Pride celebration. People were losing their minds before she had sung more than a few lines.
Even my seven year old seatmate seemed largely unfazed by the increasingly queer spectacle unfolding around her. Men in leather harnesses? Fine. Dancers on leashes? No problem. She appeared ready for whatever came next.
The moment that stuck with me most came later in the show. Kesha returned in another costume while a collection of leather-clad men crawled around her stage like devoted subjects. For a brief moment, she wasn’t the party girl, the victim, the headline, or the cautionary tale. She was the undisputed Leather Daddy of Concord Pavilion.
Then she told the audience, “I’m not doing a show for you. I’m doing a show with you.”
It was a simple statement, but it landed.
Whatever this version of Kesha is, it feels less interested in performing a role and more interested in creating a space where everyone else gets permission to stop performing theirs.
What surprised me most throughout the evening was the size of her voice. Not the size of the production, not the size of the costumes, but the actual instrument itself. Even between songs, even in moments where she wasn’t leaning on the full force of the sound system, there was a physicality to her voice that filled the amphitheater.
There is also something refreshing about watching a performer who has completely abandoned the exhausting negotiations women are often expected to make with the public. Kesha does not appear particularly interested in shrinking herself. She takes up space. A lot of it.
By conventional American celebrity standards, she isn’t presenting herself as some carefully calibrated fantasy. What she offers instead is something far more compelling: audacity. Loudness. Humor. Joy. Sexuality. Anger. Vulnerability. The freedom to be contradictory.
Watching her command that stage, I found myself thinking that everything she was doing was probably the exact reason someone once wanted to stop her from doing it.
And that’s what made the evening feel bigger than a nostalgia tour or a victory lap. It felt like witnessing somebody continue to insist upon their own existence in public.
I slipped out immediately after the final song before the encore and headed back toward BART with my concert partner. The shuttle was waiting. The crowd was smiling. The mood felt strangely light.
What lingered with me wasn’t any particular costume change or stage effect. It was the feeling I get when I watch someone attempt something difficult in front of other people.
It reminds me of being at a school talent show. A kid walks onto a stage carrying something fragile, and the audience collectively wants it to work. You can feel it in your stomach. For a moment, you imagine who they might become if they keep going.
Most of us never get to witness the entire journey. We see the finished version.
But artists spend years living through the awkward version that’s still figuring it out.
Maybe that’s why this show resonated with me. Kesha is already a star. She has been for a long time. Yet there was something about this performance that felt less like watching a celebrity and more like watching a person continue to grow in real time.
