SZA's pirate-themed Phoenix concert was a swashbuckling spectacle

SZA brought her first arena tour to a crowd-pleasing finish on Sunday, Oct. 29, in downtown Phoenix, treating fans at a packed Footprint Center to a visually stunning production whose nautical theme was inspired by the cover of her second album, “SOS.”

The concert began with SZA perched, as she is in the album art, on the edge of a diving board, surrounded by projections of the ocean.

One noticeable difference is that, in Phoenix, she dressed as a pirate.

As SZA neared the end of the opening number, “PSA,” she was concealed by a massive video screen that showed her jumping off the diving board (it may have been a plank) into the ocean waves below, a bit of smoke and mirrors that tipped its pirate hat to Taylor Swift taking a dip on The Eras Tour.

SZA was a pirate in her freewheeling nautical journey of a concert

With that, the stage was set for a freewheeling nautical journey in several acts that took us from a pier to the deck of a battered fishing trawler with "SOS" on its side through a shipwreck from which SZA, now dressed as an angel (complete with a halo and wings), was saved by an inflatable lifeboat that spirited her high above the crowd.

By the end of the concert, the singer had found her way back to the diving board, singing “Good Days" before returning for a deeply moving encore, singing "20 Something" while the screen behind her showed home movies of a birthday party for her grandmother, who died in 2019.

The combination of physical sets and video was breathtaking, especially the use of video to create the illusion that the stage had been flooded.

SZA spoke to the human condition but also threw a party

It’s all just one big metaphor, of course, for the concept of being adrift — or unmoored, if you will —– a common theme in SZA’s lyrics, from “Drew Barrymore,” the first-album highlight that finds her singing “I'm sorry I'm not more attractive,” to “Nobody Gets Me,” a song she performed as an angel in a flying lifeboat.

There was no shortage of moments that spoke to the heart of the human condition, from the half-naked vulnerability of “Supermodel” (“wish I was comfortable just with myself”) to the empowering message of “Special” (as delivered by an angel in a flying lifeboat).

There’s more to the SZA aesthetic than getting in touch with the feelings that lead to greater self-awareness and/or dark nights of the soul, of course. And we got a taste of that as well, from the self-assured swagger of “Smoking on My Ex Pack” to the hard-twerking, crowd-pleasing triumph of “Rich Baby Daddy,” her Drake collaboration.

The concert was preceded by a twerk cam, after all.

SZA's vision was clear on her 1st arena tour

SZA is among the more inspired R&B performers of her generation with two amazing studio releases to her credit — 2017’s “Ctrl” and last year’s “SOS.”

The energetic, fast-paced set leaned heavily on “SOS,” making its way through nearly every song, while also hitting several of the highlights of “Ctrl.”

The singer has assembled an impressive cast of musicians to bring those songs to life and her vocals sounded great, especially on powerful performances of “Garden (Say It Like Dat),” “Drew Barrymore” and “Snooze.”

It’s pretty obvious that her vocal range elevates her music to a level few of her contemporaries have a shot at matching. But hearing her really lay into a song like “Garden” at full throttle was a revelation.

And she’s got the moves to back it up, bumping and grinding her songs into submission with total conviction, a crew of dancers at her side, and a magnetic personality.

It didn’t all make perfect sense. The transformation from an angel to a reborn SZA to an angel yet again would be a lot to process if the sheer theatricality (and soul) of her performance didn’t make it hard to sweat the details.

It’s rare to see an artist rise to the occasion on her first arena tour with an artistic vision as clearly defined as SZA’s. It’s too soon to say what this could mean for where she goes from here. But for an artist on her second album? That was an amazing show of force.

SZA's 2023 setlist: Every song she played at her SOS Tour concert in Phoenix

SZA surprised fans during her niece's opening set

Hours before she dove in the ocean, SZA surprised fans by making an early appearance during the opening set by her niece, a soulful young talent named Vans, who sang along to prerecorded tracks.

SZA emerged in a skeleton catsuit toward the end of Vans' performance, singing and dancing on one song before hugging it out with a singer she called "my niece, my baby girl, my favorite person in the world."

D4vd impresses with crowd-pleasing opening set

Another young talent on the rise, 18-year-old d4vd, followed Vans with a powerful set at the helm of a two-piece band that offset soulful ballads with a heavy side of alternative rock.

He opened with the thumping Gary Glitter beat of "Worthless" and shifted gears to show his tender side on the understated "Backstreet Girl" before making his way through such crowd-pleasing highlights as the gospel-flavored "Here With Me" and the set-closing "Romantic Homicide," inspiring singalongs from the enthusiastic crowd.

Midway through the set, he told the crowd his songs had been recorded in his 6-year-old sister's closet on an iPhone, which if you've heard those songs, you know what an accomplishment that was.

He's clearly a talent to watch in 2024.

SZA's 2023 tour setlist: Every song she played in Phoenix

Here’s every song SZA played at Footprint Center in downtown Phoenix.

• "PSA"

• "Seek & Destroy"

• "Notice Me"

• "Love Galore"

• "Broken Clocks"

• "Forgiveless"

• "Used"

• "Bag Lady" (Erykah Badu cover)

• "Ghost in the Machine"

• "Blind"

• "Shirt"

• "Smoking on My Ex Pack"

• "All the Stars"

• "Prom"

• "Normal Girl"

• "Garden (Say It Like Dat)"

• "F2F"

• "Drew Barrymore"

• "Doves in the Wind"

• "Low"

• "Open Arms"

• "Supermodel"

• "Special"

• "Nobody Gets Me"

• "Gone Girl"

• "SOS"

• "Rich Baby Daddy"

• "Kiss Me More"

• "Love Language"

• "Snooze"

• "Kill Bill"

• "I Hate U"

• "The Weekend"

• "Good Days"

Encore

• "20 Something"

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: SZA concert review: SOS Tour was a triumph in Phoenix concert