Concerts Reviews
LIVE REVIEW: The Captain of the Castro: Why Sam Smith’s Residency Is San Francisco’s New Sanctuary
Words by Starr Lee
SAN FRANCISCO- After an intimate residency in Brooklyn earlier this year, Sam Smith has brought the concept west, settling into San Francisco’s newly reopened Castro Theatre for a five-week run that feels deliberate and personal.
The neon marquee glows against the fog like it has something to say. Inside the 1,400-capacity movie palace, restored after a $41 million renovation, the main level fills quickly. No floor seating. Just a standing crowd packed beneath the balcony, bodies shoulder to shoulder, faces tilted toward the stage. Above them, fans lean over the railing, drinks in hand, waiting.
Smith walks out without fanfare.
They open with “Lay Me Down,” nearly motionless beneath a single spotlight. Dressed in a structured captain’s hat and a sweeping lace coat fastened with an oversized flower pendant, they look like a romantic voyager arriving somewhere that already feels familiar. The first note is soft, almost cautious. Then it opens.
In a room this size, nothing escapes. The Castros’ acoustics catch the grain in Smith’s tenor, the slight ache at the edge of sustained notes, the inhale before a chorus swells. The crowd is silent, standing still, listening.
When “I’m Not the Only One” begins, the temperature shifts. Smith lowers their voice for the first verse, almost speaking the lines before lifting into the chorus. On “You and me, we made a vow,” their voice tightens just slightly, intentional and controlled. By the second refrain, the crowd is singing quietly along. Not screaming. Not overpowering. Just enough to be felt. Smith steps back from the mic for a beat and lets the lyric hover before reclaiming it with a steady rise. The moment feels shared rather than performed.
After the second song, Smith looks out across the standing crowd below the balcony.
“This city means a lot to me,” they say. “My first show here, I was 20 years old.”
They tell a story about being left alone in San Francisco while a partner explored the city without them. About wandering through neighbourhoods by themselves. About unexpectedly falling in love with the place. “It feels very full circle to be here for five weeks,” they admit, scanning the room.
Then they squint toward the front.
“Wait. Were you here last night?”
A fan screams.
“Oh my God. You’re doing the residency properly. I love that.”
Laughter spreads across the floor and up to the balcony. That’s the difference when an artist stays in one place. The room starts to recognise itself.
Midway through the set, the lace coat slips away, revealing a custom Vivienne Westwood look: a black poet’s shirt with dramatic sleeves, tailored cheeky shorts, towering heeled boots striking sharply against the stage. The shift feels freeing. Smith moves differently now. Looser. More playful.
They introduce a new track, “My Guy,” sharing that for the first time in their career, they are writing from a place where the love is reciprocated. Followed by a cover of Erasure’s “A Little Respect”, “It’s a Wednesday,” they laugh, “but I need you to shake your titties.”
The balcony answers first.
A sleek blend of “Ain’t Nobody” and “I’m Not Here to Make Friends” turns the theatre intoa late-night dance floor. But soon they bring the energy back down to another cover
Later, bathed in deep blue light, Smith steps toward the piano for “Angel From Montgomery.”
“It took me eight years to finally listen to Elton and sing this,” they admit.
The arrangement is stripped back to piano and voice. No embellishment. The lower register carries weight. The higher notes remain clear and measured. When the final line fades, the room holds still for a second longer than expected before applause breaks through.
Sam Smith’s residency at the Castro Theatre runs through Feb.10th-March 14th, 2026. Tickets are available via the theatre’s official website. With just 1,400 standing spots per night and word spreading quickly, availability is limited.
Five weeks in one theatre does something rare. It turns a concert into a chapter. And this one is still being written.
Concerts Reviews
LIVE REVIEW: Party On, Vancouver: Dogstar Sells Out the Vogue Theatre
The Vogue Theatre was packed wall to wall on September 16 as Dogstar rolled into Vancouver, and the excitement was impossible to miss. New York rock band The Backfires kicked things off with a lively opening set, warming up the room before Bret Domrose, Robert Mailhouse and Keanu Reeves stepped onto the stage. Naturally, hundreds of phones immediately went up when Reeves appeared, because Vancouver was not about to let this extremely Keanu moment go undocumented.
Reeves held down the bass, Domrose took on guitar and vocals, and Mailhouse powered the night from behind the drums. While one member may come with a little more star power, Dogstar quickly felt like a proper three-piece instead of a celebrity side project. The chemistry between them was relaxed and natural, with plenty of smiles, glances and little interactions that made it clear they were genuinely happy to be playing together. Reeves frequently wandered across the stage to jam alongside his bandmates, occasionally making his way toward the front and sending another wave of phones into the air.
Dogstar’s story stretches back to Los Angeles in 1991, when Reeves and Mailhouse first started making music together. Domrose later joined the band, and the trio released two albums before going their separate ways in 2002. More than two decades later, they reunited, returned to the stage and released Somewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees in 2023. Now, with their latest album All In Now and another tour underway, Dogstar are giving this chapter of the band far more than a quick nostalgia lap.
The set began with “Siren,” immediately setting an easygoing alt-rock tone for the night. Their cover of The Replacements’ “Can’t Hardly Wait” brought an extra burst of familiarity, while “Punch the Sky” landed with the kind of energy made for a full theatre. Rather than pausing for long speeches, the band kept things moving, letting the music and their chemistry do most of the talking. Domrose’s vocals stayed at the centre of the songs, Mailhouse gave them plenty of drive, and Reeves appeared completely locked into the groove on bass.
Yes, people cheered whenever Reeves moved closer to the edge of the stage. Yes, there was an undeniable thrill in seeing the internet’s favourite human casually rocking out a few feet away. But the attention did not stay on him alone. Domrose and Mailhouse were just as essential to the show, and together the trio delivered a performance that felt tight without becoming overly polished. There was still room for the songs to breathe, for the band to play off one another and for the night to feel a little spontaneous.
A fun surprise arrived during the encore with a roaring cover of The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter.” The band shared that they had only performed it live once before, making it a particularly unexpected way to close the night. The Vogue responded accordingly, singing, cheering and soaking up every last second before the trio left the stage.
More than 30 years after forming, and over two decades after calling it quits, Dogstar are back on the road and clearly having a great time together. That sense of fun was infectious, turning the sold-out show into something warmer and more memorable than a simple celebrity sighting. Vancouver may have arrived ready to see Keanu Reeves play bass, but by the end of the night, Dogstar had given the crowd plenty of reasons to stay invested in the whole band.
Check out our favourite photos of the night below or head to our Facebook page for the full gallery!
DOGSTAR
THE BACKFIRES
All Photo Credit: Heather Horncastle
Concerts Reviews
LIVE REVIEW: Brandi Carlile Brings the Human Touch to Rogers Arena in Vancouver
Brandi Carlile may be playing the biggest rooms of her career, but she has no interest in letting the size of the room dictate the size of the show.
At Rogers Arena in Vancouver on September 17, Carlile turned the last stop of The Human Tour’s Canadian run into something that felt surprisingly personal. The arena was full, the production was appropriately large, and her voice could probably have rattled the rafters without a microphone. Still, the moments that stuck were often the quiet ones.
That has always been one of Carlile’s best tricks. She can sing like someone has opened a trapdoor beneath her, then spend five minutes telling a story about her wife, her kids or something ridiculous that happened backstage. The shift never feels forced and it is part of what makes her concerts work.
The night opened with CMAT, whose sharp mix of country, pop and deadpan humour made for a welcome change of pace before Carlile took the stage. Then came “Returning to Myself,” the title track from her 2025 album, with Carlile immediately putting that famously elastic voice front and centre. “Human” followed, and the combination of the two songs established the emotional centre of the night early: this was a show about vulnerability, but Carlile was never interested in making it precious.
The set moved freely between her newer material and songs that have become career staples. “Mainstream Kid” brought the rock-show energy, “You Without Me” and “The Mother” pulled things back into something tender and deeply personal, and “Right on Time” delivered the kind of vocal performance that makes you wonder how she is going to top it before remembering she still has two hours left.
Her longtime collaborators Phil and Tim Hanseroth were beside her throughout, and their history with Carlile is a huge part of the show’s warmth. The trio has been playing together for more than two decades, and that familiarity shows. They can make an arena performance feel like three musicians in a room working out a song together.
Carlile leaned into that idea with an audience-request segment, inviting fans to call out songs for her and the Hanseroth twins to attempt on the spot. There is something wonderfully reckless about watching musicians of this calibre debate chords and lyrics in front of thousands of people. It should feel like a gimmick, but instead, it works. “My Song” and “This Time Tomorrow” were the chosen requests and both were a big hit.
Carlile has spoken throughout The Human Tour about the challenge of playing rooms this large. Vancouver was no different. She seemed genuinely determined to shrink Rogers Arena down to something more manageable, and the audience happily played along. The arena crowd became less like an anonymous mass and more like a room full of people who happened to know all the words.
Carlile would then remind everyone just how enormous her voice is. “The Story” remains the obvious example. The 2007 song has spent nearly two decades proving that its emotional punch does not depend on nostalgia, and live, Carlile still takes it from a restrained opening into a full-throated release. “The Joke” landed with similar force, its gospel-inflected arrangement turning Rogers Arena into something closer to a revival than a hockey rink.
The newer “Church & State” provided another major gear shift, bringing a harder edge to the performance and giving Carlile a chance to lean into the rock side of her catalogue. “Sinners, Saints and Fools” followed that same path, building from a reflective song into a full-band crescendo.
That variety is what makes a Carlile set work. She can move from intimate folk storytelling to arena rock without making either side feel like a costume. There is room for the big voice, the jokes (her obsession with Celine Dion landed very well on this Canadian date), the family stories, the politics, the covers and the moments where everything drops away except Carlile and a guitar.
Vancouver also got one of the evening’s most meaningful cover songs when Carlile delivered a stunning rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You.” Given Mitchell’s deep Canadian roots and enduring status as one of the country’s most beloved songwriters, the choice felt especially fitting for the final Canadian stop of the tour. Carlile has long spoken about Mitchell’s influence on her own songwriting, and rather than treating the song as a reverent tribute piece, she approached it with warmth and conviction, allowing its emotional complexity to shine through. The audience responded accordingly, greeting the opening lines with immediate recognition.
The encore kept that balance intact. She brought CMAT on stage for an incredible rendition of the Bee Gee’s “Islands In The Stream.” Alanis Morissette’s “Uninvited” gave Carlile a darker, more theatrical showcase, while the final stretch brought the room back together with “Hold Out Your Hand.”
For all the talk about arena tours being a sign of an artist getting bigger, Carlile seems more interested in making the audience feel closer. That is a harder trick than filling a room. Rogers Arena is built to make people feel small. Brandi Carlile spent the night doing the opposite.
Check out our favourite photos of the night below or head to our Facebook page for the full gallery!
BRANDI CARLILE
CMAT
All Photo Credit: Caroline Charruyer