{"id":368694,"date":"2026-10-09T07:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T07:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/368694\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T07:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T07:32:09","slug":"i-feel-like-im-in-new-york-right-now-sombr-transforms-the-bay-into-the-lower-east-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/368694\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I feel like I\u2019m in New York right now\u2019: sombr transforms the Bay into the Lower East Side"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques.<\/p>\n

The Daily\u2019s article on sombr\u2019s San Francisco show last year advised<\/a> readers to \u201ctake risks despite judgment,\u201d which is exactly what I did when I bought my tickets just 2 hours before his San Jose show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\u2018I\"\u2018IScreen inside the SAP Center in San Jose. (Photo: SANYA GUPTA\/The Stanford Daily)<\/p>\n

I was joined by some friends (Leo Sajkov, Patrick Walsh and Daniel Campos, all second-year Ph.D. students), who bought tickets months ago. I\u2019d been on the fence but eventually caved after a recent breakup with my summer situationship. Horrible, I know. But who better to help heal my heart than the king of heartbreak himself?<\/p>\n

Shane Boose started releasing music in 2021 under the pseudonym \u2018sombr\u2019 and rose to fame shortly after. At just age 21, he has nearly 54 million listeners and made<\/a> Time\u2019s Top 100 list earlier this month.<\/p>\n

His openers, the hellp and Tom Odell, were as far apart on the musical spectrum as possible. the hellp brought a techno DJ set while Odell slowed the pace with his indie-folk-pop vibe. Only one of these openers will be making my Spotify rotation, and I fear it\u2019s the latter. The chorus of \u201cWe love you, Tom!\u201d reverberating through the stadium confirmed it.<\/p>\n

At last, it was time for sombr.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After broadcasting a recording of him waking up shirtless (eliciting many screams), shedding a cocoon of bedsheets and putting on a shirt, he emerged in flashy gold flared pants, a mesh top and black sunglasses. Combined with the costume and set, his opening number, \u201cwe never dated,\u201d transported us to a sweaty New York City nightclub. sombr altered the yearn-forward, indie-rock anthem into a punchier club banger, setting the tone for what would be a high-energy night. What I wouldn\u2019t do to be in a nightclub in NYC right now!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\u2018I\"\u2018Isombr performing his opening number, \u201cwe never dated.\u201d (Photo: SANYA GUPTA\/The Stanford Daily)<\/p>\n

Buying this ticket, I anticipated \u201cwe never dated,\u201d one of my personal favorites, would absolutely wreck me. Hearing \u201cHow come we never even dated \/ But I still find myself thinking of you daily\u201d and \u201cNo, I can\u2019t make you love me\u201d over and over\u2026 I must report my prediction was right. Truly, \u201cWhy do you always leave me aching\u201d?<\/p>\n

sombr\u2019s set paid homage to his native New York City with awnings, metal fire escapes and large orange pipes spewing smoke. \u201cI really love the set design. There are little people in the windows,\u201d said Sajkov during one of the song transitions, while Walsh said, \u201cI feel like I\u2019m in New York right now.\u201d Between songs, the screens turned into an NYC high-rise showing shadows milling about their homes. Take me back (I went to undergrad in NYC)!<\/p>\n

\"\u2018I\"\u2018IGraphic display between songs (Photo: SANYA GUPTA\/The Stanford Daily)<\/p>\n

Despite his surge in popularity, sombr remains as quirky and awkward as ever. His crowdwork was very Gen Z, especially given the abundant profanity \u2014 such as when telling the crowd to jump to fan favorites including \u201cdo i ever cross your mind\u201d and \u201cpotential\u201d \u2014 dropped throughout the show. \u201cHe\u2019s got quite the potty mouth for someone who was born in 2005,\u201d as Sajkov put it. Along with his antics of showing the camera his rear, it was clear that he wanted his audience to relax and not be afraid of being a little silly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To no one\u2019s surprise, I\u2019ve recently been playing \u201cback to friends,\u201d \u201cHomewrecker\u201d and \u201c12 to 12\u201d on repeat. In the packed stadium, I felt every beat of \u201chow can you look at me and pretend I\u2019m someone you\u2019ve never met\u201d to my very core.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the recognizable intro for \u201c12 to 12\u201d began, sombr hyped up the crowd by ad-libbing the cha-cha slide by telling us to \u201cslide to the left,\u201d which got us all boogieing in the stands.<\/p>\n

\u201c12 to 12\u201d also made me miss navigating undergrad life in NYC with my best friend. \u201cIn a room full of people I look for [her],\u201d and I still do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With a brand built on finding beauty in everything, especially through his song \u201cMy Body Isn\u2019t Ready\u201d, sombr embraces the imperfect. He repeatedly reminded the audience that we were \u201cexactly where we\u2019re meant to be.\u201d Near the end of the night, he spray-painted the words \u201cSan Jose Rocks\u201d on a flag and ran around the stadium waving it. When sombr tells his fans \u201cYOU ARE THE REASON\u201d he\u2019s here making music, he means it.<\/p>\n

So when, halfway into our Uber home, \u201cback to friends\u201d came on the radio, I could imagine hearing\u00a0sombr\u2019s boyish laugh as he shouted, \u201cYou are beautiful, San Jose. Thank you for being beautiful.\u201d And thank you, readers, for being beautiful too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques. The Daily\u2019s article on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[136162,136163,221,61295,5312,2538,9,24,55,54,56,246,600,8725,9214,41159,1937,9740],"class_list":["post-368694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-12-to-12","tag-back-to-friends","tag-concert","tag-daily","tag-live","tag-music","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-october","tag-pop","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-jose","tag-sombr","tag-stanford","tag-tiktok"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}