By Kate Karvelis
On October 11th 2023, SZA played in her birth-town of Saint Louis at the Enterprise Arena. I have been to many concerts before, and this one was at the top of my charts. I was seated in the nosebleeds, on the furthest corner of the stage and was still blown away by SZA’s performance.
The concert told a story (something which I haven’t seen before), and the songs were divided into acts. Starting at the ‘docks’ SZA had a dock set up and an LED screen showing waves. SZA played Seek and Destroy, Notice Me, love galore, and broken clocks. Then it went to the second act – the engine room, where she played shortened versions of Forgiveless and Used. Followed by a cover of Bag Lady, then Ghost in the Machine, Blind and Shirt.
Acts 3 and 4 were my favorite. Act three had a costume change, where her dress was giving pirate! I loved the dress, and all of the dances during the song. Act three was the ‘horizon’, which turned into a storm. During act 3 she played Smoking on My Ex Pack, All the Stars, Prom, Normal Girl, Garden, F2F, Drew Barrymore, Doves in the Wind and Low. It being the ‘SOS’ tour, I was hoping she would play my favorites from CTRL, which she did. Prom, she gave a little remix of, adding a lot of 80’s synth to the song. Drew Barrymore is one of my all time favorite songs, so hearing it live was LIFE CHANGING.
Then, the storm struck, and act 4 turned into SZA performing on a lifeboat, traveling all around the arena. She was in a stunning red dress and throwing rose petals! I was entranced by her! She performed shorten versions of Open Arms, Supermodel, and Special. She monologued for a bit then sang Nobody Gets me and Gone Girl. Hearing Gone Girl this way, made me fall in LOVE with the song.
The next act, was under the sea. Starting with SOS, and then a surprise appearance by Sexyy Red! Sexyy Red and SZA preformed Pound Town, SkeeYee and Rich Baby Daddy. Sexyy Red is also a Saint Louis Native. Then Kiss Me More started. I loved hearing this song, especially because I was obsessed with it for so long. The visuals for this part were also so pretty. She then preformed Love Language, Snooze, Kill Bill, I hate U and The Weekend. All of these songs back to back I started to loose her voice. Her encore normally is just Good Days – and people actually started to leave before she performed good days!! Which shocked me. For Good days, SZA put on a stunning dress, and sat on her diving board prop again. Funnily enough, we couldn’t even see SZA on this prop, because the LED screens blocked her actual body (but we saw her on the screens). Then the stadium lights went on, and SZA changed. She came back out and performed 20 something as a special STL encore. This moment was so special because I really relate to this song, as I am about to graduate college and don’t know what I am going to do!
The visuals, costumes, lighting, dancing, EVERYTHING was so good! I had lower expectations, knowing this was going to be a rap concert, and there wasn’t going to be live instruments. But seeing SZA live, blew me away. I became a MAJOR SZA STAN, having gone from just being a casual fan.
This concert was a total 10/10
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