At the climax of her San Francisco show, Underscores brought out an unusual special guest: the Stonestown Galleria mall. As she sang the bridge to her final song, “Wish U Well,” a rapid montage of the mall’s interiors – tiled floors, escalators and food court tables – flashed on the screen behind her. The audience, dotted with brightly dyed hair and lip piercings, cheered in recognition, waving their strobing glowsticks in the air.
This montage isn’t a gimmick for a local crowd. Stonestown Galleria is the inspiration behind Underscores’ newest album and the namesake for her North American tour. “Wish U Well” might never break the Top 40, but the 26-year-old singer and producer onstage may be San Francisco’s closest thing to a homegrown pop star. In the past five years, Underscores, aka April Harper Grey, has gone from a bedroom producer to one of the standard-bearers for hyperpop, a pop subgenre that swirls together EDM with bubblegum pop.
Grey grew up in San Francisco’s Miraloma Park neighborhood, near Mount Davidson. Grey, who is transgender, attended an all-boys Episcopalian private school and began making music, mostly dubstep, under the Underscores moniker when she was a tween.
Years later, she’s become one of the decade’s most sought-after indie acts. In 2025, she played Coachella; she’s opened for PinkPantheress and had one of her tracks remixed by Yves, of K-pop group Loona. On Friday, she performed for an adoring crowd at the Regency Ballroom, running through every track from her new album, “U.”
Two dancers on the balcony of the Regency Ballroom during Umru’s opening DJ set on June 26, 2026. (Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE)
Fans cheer at the front barricade at the Regency Ballroom during Underscores’ set on June 26, 2026. (Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE)
Underscores performs in front of a large video wall at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco on June 26, 2026. (Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE)
Although Grey’s style owes more to YouTube than to any local influence, the city has left its mark. While writing her newest record, Grey made frequent trips to Stonestown Galleria, jotting down lyrics and recording voice memos in its elevators and hallways.
“I had gone to the Stonestown Galleria all my life,” Grey told the Fader earlier this year. “In high school, I had a ritual where I would walk from my house to the mall while listening to a specific album. It was very sacred to me. I started to become obsessed with the idea of the third album’s location being Stonestown Galleria.”
This homecoming show, the last of Underscores’ tour, sold out handily; on the afternoon of the concert, tickets were reselling for $251, with an afterparty at the Great Northern also selling out.
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The room was in a constant churn of motion; during frequent beat drops, its hardwood floor buckled under the weight of jumping bodies. As Underscores’ fans shouted along to the choruses of buzzy electropop tracks, rows of limp arms waved the artist’s custom LED glowsticks over their heads. One fan expressed their excitement by pumping the head of a fursuit in the air.
“I used to come to this venue when I was a kid,” Grey told the room at one point, in a lull between tracks. “… It was all these dubstep shows. We would get in the pit, and we would smoke a non-nicotine vape.”
Fans carry LED glowsticks that light up in sync with the artist’s setlist. (Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE)
Underscores performs at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco on June 26, 2026. (Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE)
Underscores’ newest album, “U,” is excellent headphone material. Grey’s left-field production, a maelstrom of precisely chopped vocal samples and unwieldy squelches of bass, remains at the heart of her music. Going into Friday’s concert, I was curious how well the artist’s music would translate to a 1,400-cap room. Grey admits that she is not a particularly strong singer and often lathers her voice in autotune.
“When I was 16, I was like, ‘I’m never going to sing,'” she told Vogue in an interview. “I just didn’t think I had a good singing voice. And I don’t necessarily think I do now – but I think it’s important for me to do it myself.”
At the Regency, though, the artist stuck the landing. Take “The Peace,” which is a stripped-back song by Underscores’ standards. It’s propelled by two elements: Grey’s voice and a repeating “ah ah” vocal sample. Grey sang the track in the darkness, lit from behind by a single LED light. Even under a layer of autotune, her voice sounded as strong and emotive as in the studio recording.
Some bedroom producers’ best tracks sound muddy and thin when performed live. Underscores did not have this problem. On the contrary, the Regency Ballroom’s sound system breathed fresh life into the minute-long drop on “Hollywood Forever,” doubling the heft of the track’s clicking drums. Although “Hollywood Forever” is among the less popular numbers on “U,” the weight of the drop practically forced the room into motion.
Musically speaking, Underscores occupies an unusual niche. Her music is a sort of outsider pop. Her best hooks are as catchy as any Britney Spears banger but kept at an arm’s length from the radio airwaves by their jagged drums and dubstep-inflected basses. Imagine if instead of bouncing between house parties, Kesha spent her formative years watching Minecraft YouTubers and running a successful K-pop vlog channel.
Underscores performs at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco on June 26, 2026. (Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE)
Underscores’ newest album, “U,” takes inspiration from San Francisco’s Stonestown Galleria mall. (Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE)
Fans bought special LED glowsticks for Underscores’ show. (Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE)
Unlike her fellow hyperpop act Charli XCX, who started pop and went experimental, Grey started experimental and turned pop. Hearing tracks from “U,” one pictures Grey re-creating 2010s radio hits from scratch, without an instruction manual, the way scientists spawn lab-grown beef from a petri dish.
The result is oddball, and it attracts an alternative crowd. This includes Grey, who has the silhouette of a pair of headphones bleached into her jet-black hair. One boy with wire-rimmed glasses filmed the whole show on his Nintendo 3DS, and although the temperature on the Regency’s floor easily cleared 80 degrees Fahrenheit, at least two audience members showed up in fursuits. Several others wore puppy masks.
Although seeing the entire Regency Ballroom bounce to “Hollywood Forever” doesn’t bring the word “intimate” to mind, Friday’s show could be the last time Underscores plays a room this small. Starting in September, Grey is set to open for Charli XCX’s arena tour, taking another step toward bona fide pop star status. Grey, who no longer lives in San Francisco, may have outgrown the nest. But as Friday’s devoted crowd can attest, she’s still the city’s hometown hero.
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This article originally published at A pop star named her tour after a San Francisco mall. Fans came out in droves..