“It may be the best pop concert I’ve ever seen!” raved a friend who went to one of Charli XCX’s Los Angeles shows last week.
We were stretched across picnic blankets in Golden Gate Park’s Robin Williams Meadow on Sunday afternoon, waiting to see Lee Fields and Thundercat perform for free. I asked my friend what she thought of Charli’s concert and groused that her PR team had denied 48 Hills’ request for a pair of tickets to review Sweat, her co-headlining tour with Troye Sivan, that night at SF’s Chase Center, which has a capacity of over 18,000 people. (The Thundercat event received 36,000 RSVPs, according to promoter Noise Pop.)
“She did things that Madonna would have been arrested for years ago,” the friend continued, “like spitting on the stage and then licking it up!” Variety agreed, writing that the Sweat tour “reached the peak of their pop powers at the first of two Los Angeles shows” on Oct. 15.
As a professional DJ and club culture chronicler with an easily Googlable discography of passionate concert and festival reviews that date back decades, I was personally bummed that my request got turned down (not even one ticket?!). There are very few writers in this region who specialize in this type of coverage, and I looked forward to watching her perform as well as seeing her local fans and admiring their presumably highlighter green ‘fits. I spend a lot of care in my attempts to make readers feel what it was like to be at a show.
But I thought it was even more galling that 48 Hills, one of the Bay Area’s few queer POC-owned publications—which arguably publishes just as much music coverage as the Chronicle, from Bruce Springsteen and Lizzo to locals galore, with an independent edge—didn’t warrant consideration. You’d think Charlie and Troye would be all over that kind of deep community engagement, considering their roots and revenue model. Girl, so confusing.
If I can swing it, I will often pay for events where I can’t get comped if I really want to write a story anyway. But when I checked Ticketmaster on Sunday afternoon, prices for one nosebleed seat ranged from $273 to over $12,000. Charli fans who balked at those prices at least had the option of going to the Hard Reset “officially unofficial charlieparty” at the Stud for $10 that ran from “7pm until the brats stop dancing.”
Small local publication Riff Magazine did get a golden ticket inside the arena and shared that Sivan said, “San Francisco, you might be our biggest show yet!” YouTube videos serve as evidence that a lot of attendees sang along.
In a recent interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, Charli described how she found herself at a crossroads of being a “leftfield artist” and a pop phenom with her current album brat, which shot her into the international mainstream after years of making music for a core group of mostly gay fans. She said that she expected to take a lengthy break from music after Sweat is finished.
A rep for Live Nation told Arts Editor Marke B. that the tour itself called the shots when out came to press coverage—only a few review requests were granted and no photo passes were issued for the Chase Center stop. The fabulous Bay Area photographer Estefany Gonzalez shot Charli XCX the last time she performed in San Francisco, at the 2022 Portola Festival, and posted some images to her Instagram account on Sunday.
Meanwhile, I spent the evening at home doing the “Apple” dance alone in the mirror. Just kidding; I went to sleep at 9 o’clock.
Tamara Palmer is a professional DJ who has been reviewing concerts and festivals for over 25 years.
