Kesha Weathers the Storm and Still Pulls Off a Sold Out Dallas Show

Second time’s the charm, right?

On Wednesday, July 9, Kesha's concert at Dos Equis Pavilion got off to kind of a rocky start. For one thing, it was supposed to be a Tuesday night show. The sky had other plans, however, and an all-night lightning storm forced the entire show (including openers Scissor Sisters and Slayyyter) to be moved back a night.

Long story short, fans weren’t thrilled about this, but they still dutifully returned 24 hours later to better weather and high spirits. When the show actually kicked off with an exceptional set from Slayyyter, everyone was ready to put the previous night’s ugliness behind them.

And then, about five minutes before Slayyyter’s set was supposed to end, a deep roll of thunder echoed through the pavilion. The entire room pulsed with the psychic energy of hundreds of people thinking the exact same thing: Are you kidding me?
Just as we had on Tuesday, we all huddled in our cars and under tents, staring at weather apps and begging whoever in the audience had angered the weather Gods to start atoning and fast. Kesha was due in The Woodlands at The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion on July 10, so this hasty reschedule wasn’t a trick she could pull twice. It was now or never (or at least now or indefinite postponement).

As we waited, parts of the set were removed from the stage, including a drumset with a pair of scissors painted on. The Scissor Sisters had, for lack of a better word, been cut. While this was surely disappointing for fans of the cult pop-rock band, who had just recently reunited, it ironically sparked some hope for the fate of Kesha’s set. After all, this was more forward momentum than we’d witnessed the night before.

The doors reopened at 8:45 p.m., and fans were allowed to return to their seats. An Instagram post from the venue announced that Kesha would be performing soon. She was slated to perform at 9:20 p.m.

She did, five minutes earlier. And it was worth the wait.
A little inclement weather is hardly the worst thing Kesha has had to endure. The pop singer-songwriter spent four years in a legal battle with her producer and alleged abuser, Dr. Luke. It was just last year that she was able to leave his label, Kemosabe Records.

She’s now the first signee of her own label, Kesha Records, and released her first album, . (Period), on July 4, making a statement of her own on Independence Day. Every aspect of Kesha’s career is shifting, and she made it clear from the first lyric of her show.

“I wake up in the morning like, ‘Fuck P. Diddy,” she sang in the updated version of her breakout hit “Tik Tok.” (The old line was, “feeling like P. Diddy.”) She debuted this lyric at Coachella this year and has stated that the change is permanent and the song, as we previously knew it, is no more. To drive the point home, she performed it with a wax figure of her own head adorned with her signature smeared blue makeup from 2009. The old Kesha can’t come to the phone.

“Tik Tok” wasn’t the only song to get a makeover. All of the numbers from her early albums were given new arrangements. “Blow” got an arena rock twist, complete with a shredding solo from Kesha herself. “Your Love is My Drug” is now the kind of 1980s synth-pop that spearheaded the poptimism movement a few years after the song’s initial release. Older songs would be mashed up with newer songs, like “YIPPEE-KI-YAY” and “Timber” or “RED FLAG.” and “Dinosaur.”

The new arrangements are more than just fun twists to keep a concert audience on their toes. These were Dr. Luke-produced songs, but his influence is now scrubbed clean.

The semi-disgraced producer is never mentioned by name, but Kesha’s past struggles still haunt the show. The staging is rife with symbolism. During “Fine Line,” Kesha sports a straitjacket and struggles to break out of it in front of a striking wall of flashing iPhone cameras.
The emotional linchpin of the show is “Praying,” a 2017 single where Kesha prays for her subject and wishes peace for them. This peace, of course, is contingent on them changing their ways and getting right with God. It’s considered a defining anthem of the #MeToo movement and is a difficult yet powerful listen. After the song finished, Kesha gave the audience a minute to decompress, and it was clear that many people needed it. We saw several fans around us who seemed impacted on a personal level and had to comfort each other.

Heavy moments aside, the Tits Out Tour is a party first and foremost and there’s nobody Kesha would rather luxuriate in her independence with than her fans at this sold-out show. Every pop star alive likes to wax poetic about how much they love their fans, but Kesha seems to mean it on another level.
Early on in the set during “Thinking of You,” she strutted around the room to be closer to some of her fans in the back, touching hands and leading a parade of dancers the whole way around.

During a stripped-back performance of “Happy,” she explained how her fans helped her through the darkest times in her life.

“I wrote [this song] as a promise that someday I would be happy,” she said. “I’m really excited to tell you that I’ve never been happier in my entire life. Y’all make me so fucking happy.”

She ended the set with “We R Who We R,” which now reads like a love letter to her “animals.” More than any other point in the show so far, this was the world her music brought to life: banging music, wild dancing and a confetti shower to shake off on the way home.

As she told us at the beginning of her show and the beginning of her career, “The party don’t start ‘til I walk in.” There’s no one (and no weather) that can stop that party. Here's more photos of Kesha's fans from the rain out on Tuesday: