SZA at Malahide Castle, Dublin | Live Review
“SZA? Never heard of her”. Not being aware of one of the world’s biggest artists ten years into her career (aka the Longitude line-up game) has seemingly become a badge of honour recently, especially in light of her patchy Glastonbury headline slot. Odder still, given that as she’s pulled off the trick of combining popular success with serious critical acclaim. It’s no matter though, because an awful lot of people are very aware of her and Malahide Castle is full of them.
These are SZA’s people – young, racially mixed, predominantly female and very excited – and they don’t care what you or Pitchfork might think. GP has been to a lot of shows this summer where it feels people have dropped not insignificant amounts of money based on one or two songs. Here, every single moment matters and it’s a welcome change.
And there are A LOT of moments. The evening rattles along at pace, covering 27 tracks in 90 minutes while barely pausing for breath. While you often wonder if a post Worthy Farm show can be an anti-climax this seems the opposite, as if the Glastonbury monkey is off her back, and she’s a commanding presence from the off – even amongst the dazzling (and at times baffling) stage set.
While her music can be close and intimate at its best, this step up a level means that everything is writ large – commendable in terms of value for money but often at the expense of the source material. Compressed into one continual whole, much of the subtleties are lost and it threatens to become an indecipherable RnB mass – ‘Ghost In The Machine’, so striking on the Phoebe Bridgers assisted original, almost passes by unnoticed.
The material that offers a twist on her signature sound is the most effective, much of it from her debut Ctrl record, and the early run of ‘Prom’, ‘Garden (Say It Like Dat)’ and ‘Drew Barrymore’ is striking – not least because it’s delivered whilst sitting astride a giant beetle. Of the SOS era ‘F2F’ lets two of her band out their literal cage to punk pop it up, ‘Kill Bill’ is a sword swinging thrill and ‘Nobody Gets Me’ – performed half way up a massive fallen tree – is a gentle anthem of self expression that clearly resonates with many here.
And there’s the rub. For all the pop pizazz on display here, there’s actually more to Solana Rowe than meets the overstimulated eye. It’s strangely two dimensional as an experience, something to watch and admire rather than be drawn into – more a theatrical extravaganza than a gig, fitting that so much of it is being filtered through the audience’s phones. Generally, the star of the show herself is an (albeit crucial) cog in a massive machine, hitting every mark but offering very little of herself in contrast to the fine songwriter she has become.
That part of her persona finally makes an appearance at the very end of the night on ‘20 Something’, a sweet and simple example of why she is where she is today – trying to balance being an artist and a star. Tonight doesn’t quite manage it but it’s an admirable attempt. And for the record, SZA’s never heard of you either.
