{"id":313206,"date":"2026-05-13T05:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T05:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/313206\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T05:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T05:56:11","slug":"demi-lovato-tour-fails-to-impress-during-san-francisco-concert-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/313206\/","title":{"rendered":"Demi Lovato tour fails to impress during San Francisco concert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Demi Lovato\u2019s<\/a> It\u2019s Not That Deep Tour is just not that good.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not necessarily that bad either. But it\u2019s certainly forgettable \u2014 a tour with very little to say and even less to offer beyond 90 minutes of decent distraction.<\/p>\n

So, yeah, what some 8,500 fans witnessed on Monday night (May 11) at Chase Center in San Francisco was \u2014 as advertised \u2014 not that deep. And that\u2019s OK, since we certainly have enough serious matters to draw our attention these days.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not OK that her show simply lacks originality, with dance-pop scene after dance-pop scene that feels like it was rescued from Britney\u2019s trash heap. There were 22 songs and easily twice as many clich\u00e9s in a show that ran a little over 90 minutes but somehow managed to feel much longer.<\/p>\n

What saved the concert from being bad was \u2014 no surprise here \u2014 Lovato\u2019s<\/a> voice, which continues to be one of the strongest in all of contemporary pop music.<\/p>\n

Lovato<\/a>, of course, has pursued many different musical genres, vibes and personas during a professional career that dates back to appearing on the children\u2019s TV series \u201cBarney & Friends\u201d early in the 21st century.<\/p>\n

Yet, where she\u2019s at now \u2014 in terms of all those things \u2014 is arguably the most ill-fitting of the bunch. Having done some decent work with her previous two rock-oriented albums, Lovato<\/a> dove into the EDM-fueled dance-pop realm with pretty iffy results on 2025\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s Not That Deep.\u201d The problem is that the often-dizzying club-heavy techno arrangements, besides coming across as both plastic and commonplace, detract from her greatest strength \u2014 which, again, is her voice.<\/p>\n

Taking the stage just after 9 p.m., Lovato<\/a> boogied alongside her six dancers, sans a band, to pre-recorded tracks as she opened the set with a trio of mediocre one-word titles off the new album \u2014 \u201cFast,\u201d \u201cKiss\u201d and \u201cFrequency\u201d \u2014 all of which somehow managed to sound even more cold, distant and less interesting than they do on the record.<\/p>\n

The visuals were equally unimpressive, with a stage design that wasn\u2019t quite a cardboard cutout but also didn\u2019t feel that far off from one either, with her team sparing all expenses to create something that looked like an urban-industrial scene from a Roger Corman movie. The special effects came courtesy of a video screen, as opposed to any sort of 3-D experience, with images of snowfall and later fireworks proving to be very weak substitutes for the real thing.<\/p>\n

The whole thing just felt very cheap and dated, like Lovato had picked up the visuals from Lady Gaga\u2019s garage sale.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, that opening dance-pop segment \u2014 one of the show\u2019s four acts (plus encore), all of which were unremarkable and all but indistinguishable from one another \u2014 eventually ended and Lovato opened the next with a dramatic vocal showcase of \u201cHeart Attack\u201d delivered from the top of the stage set. That powerful piece from 2013\u2019s \u201cDemi,\u201d the album where the singer managed to strike her most convincing and enjoyable balance of dance-pop and Top 40 sounds, strongly connected with the crowd.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old New Mexico native had some luck with upping the dance-pop quotient on \u201cConfident\u201d \u2014 a song that has always come across as Lovato\u2019s best Spears impersonation \u2014 but, in general, the newer, synth-y versions of the older songs fell flat.<\/p>\n

Lovato made the wise decision to play it straight with \u201cSkyscraper,\u201d the powerhouse vocal ballad that highlights 2011\u2019s \u201cUnbroken,\u201d and the result was the best moment of the night.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d make a few attempts to engage with the crowd, some of which felt about as authentic as the stage set she was performing in front of. Yet, it was easy to hear the joy in her voice as she spoke about husband Jordan Lutes, aka Juno Award-nominated Canadian artist Jutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my first tour married,\u201d exclaimed Lovato, mentioning that Jutes was currently on tour in Europe. \u201d I have such an incredible husband \u2026 I miss him so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show meandered to a close, with each dance-pop number evoking thoughts along the lines of \u201cHaven\u2019t I see\/heard this all before?\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, the cliche-rich dance routines and generic dance grooves would get interrupted every so often by a nice vocal showcase \u2014 such as on \u201cGhost\u201d (perhaps the only track that is really worth hearing more than once from the new album) and \u201cStone Cold\u201d (from 2015\u2019s \u201cConfident\u201d) \u2014 which was enough to keep the show from falling below a solid \u201cC\u201d rating.<\/p>\n

After closing the main set in lackluster fashion with \u201cReally Don\u2019t Care,\u201d Lovato kicked off an encore with more dance-pop mediocrity, delivered this time with sunglasses on, with \u201cSorry for Myself\u201d followed by crowd favorite \u201cCool for the Summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Demi Lovato setlist:1. \u201cFast\u201d2. \u201cKiss\u201d3. \u201cFrequency\u201d4. \u201cHeart Attack\u201d5. \u201cTell Me You Love Me\u201d6. \u201cConfident\u201d7. \u201cLow Rise Jeans\u201d8. \u201cFantasy\u201d9. \u201cSolo\u201d10. \u201cSkyscraper\u201d11. \u201cGive Your Heart a Break\u201d12. \u201cSay It\u201d13. \u201cLittle Bit\u201d14. \u201cGhost\u201d15. \u201cHere All Night\u201d16. \u201cJoshua Tree\u201d17. \u201cHappy Ending\u201d18. \u201cLet You Go\u201d19. \u201cStone Cold\u201d20. \u201cSorry Not Sorry\u201d21. \u201cReally Don\u2019t Care\u201dEncore:22. \u201cSorry to Myself\u201d23. \u201cCool for the Summer\u201d<\/p>\n

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