SZA sat at the edge of a diving board, her legs dangling from above as she looked down over Toronto's sold-out Scotiabank Arena. Ocean waters were projected all around her.
It was the first visual in her 17-date SOS tour, and it was one of isolation, inspired by an iconic photograph taken of Princess Diana. Before (simulating) falling into the sea below, the artist belted out the opening verse of "PSA": "I don't want nobody callin' me anything but number one."
Immediately, crowd members were pulled into the beautiful contradiction of SZA's art. She's isolated but self-assured. Vengeful but soft. Wistful but grounded. It was an opening scene that sets the tone for an ambitious 90-minute voyage through sea and self.
SZA is on the first arena tour of her career. The Missouri-born singer hadn't headlined her own show in Toronto since 2017, when she played to a crowd of just a few thousand at REBEL. The question wasn't whether she could fill the arena (she sold out every date on the tour), but how she would command and sustain the attention from the front row to the nosebleeds. Days ahead of her first stop, she teased that she was ready to "pop ass and cry and give theatre," and this turned out to be the exact trifecta on display on Saturday night.
Throughout the show, SZA was back-dropped by a giant wraparound screen that told the story of a boat out at sea — from departure to shipwreck. The stage morphed into a pier before transforming into a fishing vessel, and as performers moved across the different levels of the trawler, the setup wouldn't have been out of place on Broadway.
Unfortunately, a generous portion of SZA's fans experienced these first moments as echoes from outside the arena. In an organizational mishap that should have never occurred at a venue of this scale, thousands of people were bottlenecked outside the arena gates for hours. Security guards couldn't mask their disbelief as masses of fans flooded the atrium, weaving down hallways as far as the eye could see. Every concertgoer was trying to inch their way through a growing sea of agitation, as overwhelmed staff gestured left and right trying to make sense of the mess. With no answers and increasing frustration, some fans were desperately tweeting at SZA, begging her to delay until they'd been let in. There have since been calls for partial refunds — but in the meantime, the show had to go on.
This logistical chaos meant that the opener, Grammy-nominated singer Omar Apollo, played to a half-empty venue. It's not what he deserved, but if it bothered him, he didn't let it show. Mastering the shifts between dreamy soul, sultry R&B and rock-forward riffs, he proved himself more than capable of commanding an arena crowd. His pitch-perfect falsetto and groovy melodies were met with anthemic singalongs from an audience that had clearly shown up for him as well as for the headlining act. In between verses, he'd throw his head back in a manic laugh, flick his shirt open with a sly grin, and strut across the stage with a self-possession impressive for a 25-year-old artist whose debut studio album came out just last year. He closed with fan favourite "Evergreen"; as the crowd scream-sang "You didn't deserve me at all," it was clear that people had come for catharsis.
After years of being pigeonholed as an R&B artist, we no longer have to waste ink explaining why SZA is a pop superstar. To reflect that, she came armed with the usual pop performance tropes: six costume changes (including one that was filmed live backstage as she mouthed the words to "Smoking on My Ex Pack"), backup dancers (who ended up being more of a half-baked distraction than a complement), wind machines, ever-evolving set designs and generous backing tracks. When she sang unaccompanied, though, her voice was in full form.
SZA promised theatrics, and she delivered them — she wielded a meteor hammer while performing "Kill Bill"; she spread her arms open at the prow of the ship to mirror that scene from Titanic; she set sail on a life raft that floated over the crowd as she sang about a breakup that "ruined her life." But for all the arena flair and pageantry, the singer was at her best on ballads like "Blind," "Special" and "Nobody Gets Me." Solo and belting her unique brand of pop anthem to the rafters, she delivered the palpable confessional connection that people came for. You may pay for the production, but sometimes a mic is all you need.
For an artist with just two studio albums, her 32-song setlist was ambitious. It was a lesson in efficiency, with mere seconds often separating one song from the next, and wardrobe changes that seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. Only two songs from the 23-track-long SOS were left out of the show, interspersed with her most popular features ("Kiss Me More", "All the Stars"), an Erykah Badu cover ("Bag Lady") and CTRL classics that earned some of the biggest reactions of the night.
What's striking about SZA is not only that she's a genre chameleon who jumps from pop to soul to grunge, but also that she's an emotional chameleon capable of channeling different facets of her persona with the drop of a hat. She transitioned from head-banging pop-punk on "F2F" to mourning a toxic ex in a pile on the floor with "Drew Barrymore'' to exuding the bravado demanded of a song "dedicated to vaginas" with "Doves in the Wind." She masterfully guided her fans through an emotional rolodex.
The show ended right where it began: with SZA perched atop the diving board. This time, she sported a billowing red dress instead of a hockey jersey, and optimism took the place of her initial isolation. She sang through some self-affirming mantras on "Good Days" while surrounded by sunsets and clouds. As the immersive journey concluded, it was clear that SZA is at home in the arena format. It's hard to imagine her anywhere else.
It was the first visual in her 17-date SOS tour, and it was one of isolation, inspired by an iconic photograph taken of Princess Diana. Before (simulating) falling into the sea below, the artist belted out the opening verse of "PSA": "I don't want nobody callin' me anything but number one."
Immediately, crowd members were pulled into the beautiful contradiction of SZA's art. She's isolated but self-assured. Vengeful but soft. Wistful but grounded. It was an opening scene that sets the tone for an ambitious 90-minute voyage through sea and self.
SZA is on the first arena tour of her career. The Missouri-born singer hadn't headlined her own show in Toronto since 2017, when she played to a crowd of just a few thousand at REBEL. The question wasn't whether she could fill the arena (she sold out every date on the tour), but how she would command and sustain the attention from the front row to the nosebleeds. Days ahead of her first stop, she teased that she was ready to "pop ass and cry and give theatre," and this turned out to be the exact trifecta on display on Saturday night.
Throughout the show, SZA was back-dropped by a giant wraparound screen that told the story of a boat out at sea — from departure to shipwreck. The stage morphed into a pier before transforming into a fishing vessel, and as performers moved across the different levels of the trawler, the setup wouldn't have been out of place on Broadway.
Unfortunately, a generous portion of SZA's fans experienced these first moments as echoes from outside the arena. In an organizational mishap that should have never occurred at a venue of this scale, thousands of people were bottlenecked outside the arena gates for hours. Security guards couldn't mask their disbelief as masses of fans flooded the atrium, weaving down hallways as far as the eye could see. Every concertgoer was trying to inch their way through a growing sea of agitation, as overwhelmed staff gestured left and right trying to make sense of the mess. With no answers and increasing frustration, some fans were desperately tweeting at SZA, begging her to delay until they'd been let in. There have since been calls for partial refunds — but in the meantime, the show had to go on.
This logistical chaos meant that the opener, Grammy-nominated singer Omar Apollo, played to a half-empty venue. It's not what he deserved, but if it bothered him, he didn't let it show. Mastering the shifts between dreamy soul, sultry R&B and rock-forward riffs, he proved himself more than capable of commanding an arena crowd. His pitch-perfect falsetto and groovy melodies were met with anthemic singalongs from an audience that had clearly shown up for him as well as for the headlining act. In between verses, he'd throw his head back in a manic laugh, flick his shirt open with a sly grin, and strut across the stage with a self-possession impressive for a 25-year-old artist whose debut studio album came out just last year. He closed with fan favourite "Evergreen"; as the crowd scream-sang "You didn't deserve me at all," it was clear that people had come for catharsis.
After years of being pigeonholed as an R&B artist, we no longer have to waste ink explaining why SZA is a pop superstar. To reflect that, she came armed with the usual pop performance tropes: six costume changes (including one that was filmed live backstage as she mouthed the words to "Smoking on My Ex Pack"), backup dancers (who ended up being more of a half-baked distraction than a complement), wind machines, ever-evolving set designs and generous backing tracks. When she sang unaccompanied, though, her voice was in full form.
SZA promised theatrics, and she delivered them — she wielded a meteor hammer while performing "Kill Bill"; she spread her arms open at the prow of the ship to mirror that scene from Titanic; she set sail on a life raft that floated over the crowd as she sang about a breakup that "ruined her life." But for all the arena flair and pageantry, the singer was at her best on ballads like "Blind," "Special" and "Nobody Gets Me." Solo and belting her unique brand of pop anthem to the rafters, she delivered the palpable confessional connection that people came for. You may pay for the production, but sometimes a mic is all you need.
For an artist with just two studio albums, her 32-song setlist was ambitious. It was a lesson in efficiency, with mere seconds often separating one song from the next, and wardrobe changes that seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. Only two songs from the 23-track-long SOS were left out of the show, interspersed with her most popular features ("Kiss Me More", "All the Stars"), an Erykah Badu cover ("Bag Lady") and CTRL classics that earned some of the biggest reactions of the night.
What's striking about SZA is not only that she's a genre chameleon who jumps from pop to soul to grunge, but also that she's an emotional chameleon capable of channeling different facets of her persona with the drop of a hat. She transitioned from head-banging pop-punk on "F2F" to mourning a toxic ex in a pile on the floor with "Drew Barrymore'' to exuding the bravado demanded of a song "dedicated to vaginas" with "Doves in the Wind." She masterfully guided her fans through an emotional rolodex.
The show ended right where it began: with SZA perched atop the diving board. This time, she sported a billowing red dress instead of a hockey jersey, and optimism took the place of her initial isolation. She sang through some self-affirming mantras on "Good Days" while surrounded by sunsets and clouds. As the immersive journey concluded, it was clear that SZA is at home in the arena format. It's hard to imagine her anywhere else.