Jepsen’s lively set pops with spirit
Carly Rae Jepsen may hail from the land that just vanquished the Golden State Warriors, but at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Friday, June 28, the Canadian pop star was welcomed as one of the Bay Area’s own.
On a night just before San Francisco’s Pride Weekend, Jepsen’s performance was not an official part of the celebration. But, as fans weaved their way through the various tents and fencing already being installed at Civic Center Plaza in advance of the big parade and festivities on Sunday, June 30, it was impossible to see the two events as unrelated. Inside the auditorium, brightly costumed fans packed the dance floor in anticipation of Jepsen’s arrival. There was plenty of neon, lots of lipstick and a persistently palpable buzz as the electronic Australian trio Mansionair and the New York synthpop outfit St. Lucia got the evening started.
It wasn’t a soldout night — and not nearly as jampacked as the auditorium was the weekend before for comic John Mulaney’s Clusterfest performance — but the energy in the venue was electric. Whatever Jepsen’s audience was lacking in quantity, it more than made up for in ebullient quality. By the time Jepsen opened her set with “No Drug Like Me” — a slick, synthindebted single from her phenomenal latest album, “Dedicated” — it was clear that Jepsen’s performance would be but the first of many during the weekend to serve as an ideal opportunity to dance with sweatsoaked abandon.
Friday’s performance also
marked Jepsen’s first Bay Area concert since the May 17 release of her acclaimed fourth album, “Dedicated.” As she’d already made clear with triumphant shows at the Warfield in 2016 and last year’s Outside Lands music festival, Jepsen doesn’t need a new album to work her magic.
Dressed in a metallic pink catsuit, Jepsen spent the majority of her set dancing on her own and engaging with her band members, all dressed in white, onstage. Unlike many modern pop singer productions, there was no elaborate choreography, gimmicky props or video segments. Instead, Jepsen fed off the energy of her fans to offer a 90minute performance focused solely on the music. Beyond one costume change, Jepsen spent the entirety of her show onstage, barreling through track after track.
And if there was any doubt that the “Call Me Maybe” star had enough material to anchor a headlining set at San Francisco’s largest indoor rock venue, they were extinguished Friday night. Since her 2012 megahit, Jepsen has pumped out two records filled with the kind of selfassured, unapologetic pop music that provides the soundtrack for Pride weekends all over the country. Only 30 minutes into her set, Jepsen had already run through “Call Me Maybe” as well as the buoyant “Run Away with Me” from 2015’s “Emotion.”
Right up until the end of the show, the only thing that appeared to be missing was an explicit acknowledgment of Pride from Jepsen. Opting to keep her banter to a minimum, Jepsen gave short, rehearsed introductions to a small selection of songs but otherwise let the music do the talking for most of her performance.
Then came her encore.
Speaking with The Chronicle ahead of her performance, Jepsen explained that her mission with her music was “to cry glitter on the dance floor.” Well, on Friday, there were definitely some happy tears and oh so much glitter when she returned with popular Hawaiian Instagram personality Mark Kanemura, whom she brought on as a guest during her Outside Lands debut.
With a Pride flag draped over his shoulders, Kanemura donned a rainbow Afro wig and short shorts. His delightful dance moves included a trick where he tossed wig after wig pulled from his own head into the crowd. Soundtracking the spectacle was Jepsen’s “Cut to the Feeling,” a euphoric, ’80sstyle blast of pop bravado. It would serve as the night’s final song, a fittingly bombastic ending to a refreshingly empowering evening.
“Thank you guys so much,” Jepsen breathlessly added as the song’s last notes faded out. “This has been one of the most memorable and special nights we’ve had.”