Chaz Bear—or Toro y Moi, as he’s known to fans of his eclectic, chillwave, and meticulously textured electronic music—may not have been born in the Bay Area, but he has become synonymous with San Francisco’s funky, underground music scene. His signature blend of sun-drenched psychedelia, bedroom-pop introspection, and forward-thinking electronic beats perfectly mirrors the creative, laid-back eclecticism of Northern California.
Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing Bear grace the stages of the region’s most historic and beloved venues, from a monumental set at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre to intimate multi-night runs at The Fillmore in San Francisco and The New Parish in Oakland, to headlining major regional events like the Portola Music Festival. I’ve stood in the mosh pit at his shows throughout my twenties, watching him effortlessly bop around the stage in a laidback shirt and hat, seemingly creating sounds out of thin air.
Yet, long before his festival-headlining days, Bear performed his first-ever San Francisco live show at the beloved Bottom of the Hill—more than 20 years ago; pre-2009. Tucked away in Potrero Hill, the venue is sacred to local music lovers for its sweaty, intimate energy and no-frills dive bar aesthetic. Going there feels like visiting your best friend who lives in the Inner Richmond: it’s homey, not trying too hard, and utterly lacking in pretension, yet insanely full of heart, character, and life.
Felicitously, on July 29, Bear returned to this very stage for a homecoming tinged with sadness, as the legendary venue is set to close its doors at the end of 2026.
The impending loss of Bottom of the Hill is a heavy blow to the local community. Speaking to Coyote Media, co-owners Kathleen Downey and Lynn Schwarz explained that the decision to close after 35 years was deeply personal; they wanted to step away and devote more time to their personal lives and outside projects rather than waiting for the business to fail. “While I once imagined Bottom of the Hill staying open indefinitely,” Schwarz noted, closing eventually felt like the right path forward.
They also pointed to the undeniable challenges of running an independent venue today: rising operating costs, San Francisco’s shifting demographics, post-pandemic changes in leisure spending, and an increasingly corporate live-music industry dominated by massive promoters who make it difficult for small clubs to compete for talent. For decades, independent spaces like Bottom of the Hill have served as the vital, gritty incubators where rising artists cut their teeth and build communities before graduating to those very same corporate arenas.
This bittersweet reality made Toro y Moi’s July 29 performance feel less like a standard tour stop and more like a sacred celebration. Inside the packed-yet-intimate club, Bear turned the stage into a showcase of his restless musical evolution. Rather than centering the performance around his latest release, he moved fluidly through more than a decade of indie pop, chillwave, psych-rock, R&B, and house, building a setlist that felt both retrospective and firmly rooted in the present.
The night opened with the breezy, strutting groove of “The Loop” before transitioning into “Grown Up Calls,” whose lush psych-funk immediately wrapped the room in a warm, hazy embrace. “New House” and “No Show” pulled the mood into darker, more nocturnal territory, while “So Many Details” settled into the slick, introspective R&B that has become one of Bear’s defining signatures.
From there, the set loosened up beautifully. “Lilly” and “Buffalo” brought the fuzzy psych-pop of What For? into the room, followed by MAHAL standouts like “The Flight,” “Magazine,” and “Goes By So Fast.” This guitar-driven stretch gave the performance a distinctly West Coast ease, illustrating how naturally Bear bridges his electronic instincts with an organic, band-oriented sound.
The energy shifted gears with “Rose Quartz,” which launched a relentless run of dancefloor-ready tracks. “Laws of the Universe,” “Freelance,” and “Ordinary Pleasure” pushed the crowd into a joyous, sweat-slicked groove, with Bear leaning heavily into the disco, house, and funk influences that thread his catalog together. He even made space for the fractured, trap-adjacent sounds of his newer album Hole Erth, performing “Tuesday” and “HOV” alongside his older material. The peak of the electronic intensity arrived with “The Difference,” his high-octane collaboration with Flume, which threatened to blow the roof off the small room.
Inside the 350-capacity venue, there were no barricades or towering video screens; instead, the barrier between artist and audience completely dissolved. The low wood-paneled ceilings trapped the collective heat of a crowd in constant motion, turning the historic club into a sweaty, high-octane DIY loft party.
Rather than ending on that frantic high, Bear brought the night full circle with “Girl Like You,” the dreamy, slow-burning closer from Boo Boo. After an evening that had traversed so many different iterations of Toro y Moi, this softer, nostalgic ending felt like a gentle landing.
In a room as intimate as that of Bottom of the Hill, the sheer breadth of Bear’s catalog felt especially striking. Songs spanning more than a decade and several distinct musical identities sat comfortably side-by-side, unified by an undeniable sense of groove. As San Francisco prepares to say goodbye to one of its most vital independent stages, Toro y Moi’s performance served as a poignant reminder of why these spaces matter. It proved that evolution isn’t about abandoning where you started; it’s about seeing how many beautiful places that original sound can go.
