Surrounded by a wrecking ball and a swath of sunflowers, SZA emerged atop a decidedly imperfect, rusted-out lighthouse Friday night.
Clashing elegance and decay, the improbable port scene provided a rather apocalyptic backdrop for the headliner’s striking R&B confessionals. Her microphone bloomed from a large, victorian ruffle wrapped around her right arm, which she shed halfway through – a glimpse of more contrasting theatrics to come. With the unlikely achievement of festival headliner status with just debut album Ctrl (and a June deluxe edition), SZA built her 20-track set around staples from the 2017 record and a swath of singles since.
Despite limited options, the complex perspective that drives her music’s honesty permeated, especially in spoken introductions. The Missouri-born star ruminated on her fear of time before rowing (literally, in a canoe) through acoustic deluxe track “Miles,” and delivered a borderline-spiritual sermon ahead of seemingly surface-level bop “Hit Different.” To preface TikTok-viral 2021 single “I Hate U,” she addressed the full spectrum of emotions. “Sometimes shit is just confusing. And sometimes, it’s just, ‘I fucking hate you… That’s it,’” she said, fluctuating between intricacies and absolutes.
The intimate onstage connection with her guitarist, decked in denim, drove a double feature of “Garden (Say It Like Dat)” and an extended “Wavy Interlude” – highlighting the impressive musicality that can occasionally fall in the shadow of SZA’s standout lyrics. Any hitches in her performance rolled right off her back, the audience’s energy filling in any gaps of wavering vocals. When a wardrobe malfunction left her slightly exposed following “Broken Clocks,” she brushed it off with a smile.
“If you see ’em again just say, ‘titties!’” she said, still fastening the glittering thread holding her top together. “Titties!” the swarm of onlookers joyously replied, as SZA slyly segued the moment into her next move: “It’s just normal girl shit anyway.”
Clearly eager to share new work, the headliner offered a teaser of the long-anticipated Doja Cat collab “Shirt,” later addressing lingering rumors that the single was intended to drop that same day. “That was true,” she admitted. “But, it didn’t come out because I looked at the video, and I was stressed at one small thing in the video. But I fixed that, and it’s turned in and about to come out. That’s the truth.”
Her hesitancy called back to the perfectionist delays that plagued the release of Ctrl five years prior – the then-self-conscious rising star not suspecting the critical and popular acclaim it would ultimately receive. Now, there’s an underlying excitement to SZA’s nitpicks. Clearly eager to breathe new life into her catalog, she explained: “If I wouldn’t be in so much trouble, I wanna sing all new songs, ’cause y’all deserve it.”
After closing number “The Weekend” mutated into a funk-infused remix, SZA journeyed up the lighthouse once more. On the final beat, she unexpectedly leapt off, descending to the floor à la Natalie Portman in Black Swan. Working through similar tortured artistry as explored in the 2010 Darren Aronofsky flick, SZA’s invigorated intentions – at least as evidenced in her second ACL performance – seem slightly less concerned with perfection.
This article appears in The Drinks Issue (2022).