SOS Tour

The SOS Tour was the second concert tour and first arena tour by American singer-songwriter SZA, in support of her second studio album, SOS (2022). It was announced on December 13, and commenced on February 21, 2023, in Columbus, Ohio. By its conclusion on May 2, 2024, in Melbourne, Australia, the SOS Tour comprised sixty-four shows.
Lasting for about 90 minutes, every show had a set list of over 30 songs, most of which were from SOS. Some were taken from Ctrl (2017), her debut studio album. Select shows had surprise guests who performed with SZA songs on which they had collaborated. Omar Apollo, Raye, and D4vd were the opening acts for each leg, respectively.
A nautical visual motif persisted throughout the concerts, and theatrical and cinematic influences were apparent. This was intentional; with the tour, SZA aimed for catharsis: to "pop ass and cry and give theater". There was a loose plot where a fishing trawler sailed to sea and sunk, some moments referenced the films Titanic (1997) and Kill Bill (2003–2004), and the production was inspired by Broadway and Disney films like Cinderella (1950). Stage settings included a pier, the trawler, a lighthouse, and a seabed. Every show began and ended with SZA on a diving board, recreating the SOS cover art. To start the show, she appeared to jump off the board and into the waters below her, done through pre-filmed visual effects.
SZA's debut studio album, Ctrl, was released in 2017. Her next, SOS, was highly awaited. This was in large part due to Ctrl's critical acclaim, as well as the five-year-long wait and the several delays that occurred surrounding SOS's release. In November 2022, SZA told Billboard that the album would come out the following month. She posted the track list via Twitter on December 5, and SOS was released four days later to critical and commercial success.
In promotion of SOS, SZA announced merchandise for the album on December 13. At the same time, she revealed she would go on tour in early 2023 in support of the album. She wrote on Instagram, "Time to take this shit on the road!" Tickets went on sale via SZA's website on December 16, at 12 pm local time, with pre-sales hosted by Ticketmaster one day beforehand. Several publications called the tour one of 2023's most anticipated; some cited the critical acclaim of SOS and the years-long wait for SZA's album as reasons.
The SOS Tour is SZA's second concert tour—following Ctrl the Tour which ended in 2018—and also her first arena tour. She was set to perform only in North America, with dates in 17 cities across Canada and the United States. Omar Apollo, who never toured in arenas before, was announced as the concerts' opening act. The first concert was on February 21, 2023, in Columbus, Ohio, and the last was on March 23, 2023, in Inglewood, California. One date in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, scheduled for March 2, was postponed.
Three weeks after the second Inglewood show, SZA announced 30 more shows for the SOS Tour due to high demand. It included a new leg in Europe, with 11 dates in seven countries. Pre-sales happened on April 12, 2023, starting 10 am local time, and an on-sale is planned for April 14 if there are leftover tickets. British singer Raye performed as the opening act in nine of the dates. After touring Europe, SZA returned to North America for 21 concerts in the United States and another concert in Canada. The set of 21 US shows includes the postponed Philadelphia date. Pre-sales are on April 13 at 10 am local time, and tickets go on sale on April 14 at 12 pm local time. In a November 2023 Variety interview with SZA for the magazine's Hitmaker of the Year award, author Jem Aswad revealed that a fourth leg set in Latin America and Oceania will take place in 2024.
The SOS Tour's concerts were around 90 minutes long. Every show featured prominent nautical visual elements, and critics divided one show into four or five acts based on the stage scenery. The setup included footage of waters, projected onto video screens, alongside several large props like a boat or anchor, reinforcing the tour's visual theme. Accompanying SZA was a three-person band that flanked the stage throughout the concerts. Four backup dancers were present to perform interpretative dances; at times they were dressed as sailors.
Set lists had over 30 songs. Apart from the standard SOS tracks, SZA performed various songs from Ctrl, such as "Love Galore", "Broken Clocks", and "Garden (Say It like Dat)". She also included covers of "Bag Lady" (2000) by Erykah Badu and her collaborations with other artists, which include "All the Stars" (2018) with Kendrick Lamar and "Kiss Me More" (2021) with Doja Cat. Other song choices were "PSA" and in some shows "DTM", both of which are unreleased songs set to appear on the reissue of SOS, Lana. Select shows featured surprise guests; most were artists with whom she had worked on songs in the past.
A concert began with SZA's recreation of the album's cover art—which shows her atop a diving board in the middle of the ocean—backed by "PSA". The screen projected a pre-filmed scene in which, through visual effects, her silhouette throws her microphone at the ocean and dives into the water headfirst. Emerging for "Seek & Destroy", SZA and her backup dancers appeared behind the first stage setting, a pier into which a fishing trawler is docked.
When SZA performed "Shirt", visuals of puddled, gushing water followed her and her dancers across the stage. After a brief costume change backed by "Smoking on My Ex Pack", SZA appeared on top of a life-sized sailboat beside a pier. Following a performance of her rock song "F2F", in which she and her guitarist headbanged to channel a mosh pit, the screen and stage floor projected a scene of a turbulent sea, leading her to retreat to a floating life raft. It took SZA to the opposite end of the arena, on which stood a lighthouse 20 feet (6.1 m) tall.
SZA performed a medley of "Supermodel" (Ctrl), "Special", "Nobody Gets Me", and "Gone Girl", as the raft transported her across the venue. The storm-themed backdrop ended once she reached the other side. There, she did another costume change. She wore red biker pants and a motor suit with a spiked ball and chain in hand, recreating her outfit in the music video for "Kill Bill". Her prop was a callback to a scene in Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) where Gogo Yubari fought the protagonist, the Bride, at the House of Blue Leaves using a meteor hammer.
A bookending performance of "Good Days" marked the concert's encore. SZA concluded the show back on the diving board, as the screen projected a scene of the sun either rising or setting. In some shows, "20 Something" (Ctrl) was the final song. Home videos of her deceased grandmother, who died in 2019, played during the performance. After the concert, the screen projected an image of stars arranged to form the phrase "The End". Credits rolled, beginning with the acknowledgment of SZA as the creative director. Also included were the truck drivers, technical crew, dancers, choreographers, and backing musicians. After the credits appeared a teaser for a music video for the SOS track "Low", which depicts SZA as she uses a flamethrower.
SZA's approach with the tour was to "pop ass and cry and give theater", aiming for catharsis through cinematics and theatrics. She told Billboard: "I want it to be smart and exhilarating and exhausting and exciting like a party, but also like a therapy session." Broadway performances were her primary basis for the tour's production. She fused these inspirations with the visual styles of circus shows from Cirque du Soleil. Another aesthetic influence SZA cited was the film Suspiria (1977), which is dominated by vibrant, saturated colors.
The tour's cinematic and theatrical proclivities are apparent in several ways. Included are the use of credits alongside elaborate set designs and props. Bolstering the film influences are homages to Titanic (1997)—showed through the sunken-ship setting and SZA's open-arms pose at the trawler's bow—and the Kill Bill duology, showed through SZA's meteor hammer and Crazy 88 reference.
Disney films also influenced the SOS Tour's production. SZA described it as a "Cinderella moment where there's weird, ethereal, mystical, soft things" combined with a "hardcore edge", reflected through the sets and costumes. While performing the medley, SZA wore a yellow tulle gown for the shows' third outfit, reminiscent of the character Belle from Beauty and the Beast (1991). Apart from this and Cinderella (1950), the stage design and outfits took inspiration from other Disney films such as Aladdin (1992), Treasure Planet (2002) and The Little Mermaid (1989).
There were six wardrobe changes throughout the concerts. When SZA began with "PSA", she wore a variant of the St. Louis Blues hockey jersey, with its number substituted for an "S" to recall the SOS cover art. Printed on the back was "Yemaya", the name of a water spiritess of the Yoruba peoples in West Africa.
Alejandra Hernandez styled SZA's garments, having collaborated since 2016 for the "Drew Barrymore" music video. Many designers contacted SZA before the tour and pitched ideas for her outfits, but she turned everyone down. Trusting Hernandez, she believed they had to "make [their] own thing". Comfort was the point behind curating SZA's looks, in two senses of the word. SZA wanted the outfits to feel comfortable, and she wanted to feel comfortable being herself.
Part of SZA's fashion sense was an affinity for oversized varsity jackets, reflected on the first costume, so Hernandez knew to always have several in their wardrobe. SZA also favored baggy men's jeans, and vintage menswear from the 1990s and early 2000s. Her clothes for many live appearances preceding the tour were frequently varsity jackets and conventional men's apparel.
It was Hernandez's first time being a stylist for arena tours. She constructed many of the garments by hand, and she ensured the designs were practical for the swift wardrobe changes. During the first dress rehearsal, however, the crew realized it was not the case. Now aware their collection was too extravagant, she and her tailor overhauled the entire wardrobe by upcycling the elaborate pieces into something simpler. They cut up many bottom wear to turn them into upper wear. She told Vogue about the third outfit: "The raft jacket she wears when she floats over the audience? That's a jacket I had to hand sew. That piece didn't exist in the wardrobe, it was gonna be worn under a skirt."
Critics analyzed the nautical motif as metaphors for themes frequent to SZA's music. Many of those critics wrote the tour's voyage premise, through props like the submarine and lighthouse, symbolized navigation of one's self to heal from a turbulent past. One interpretation of SZA's diving into the ocean was it was a metaphorical diving, or contemplation, into the complex variety of emotions she channeled throughout the set list. Another compared it to her willingness to take risks with romances filled with uncertainties. The ocean, according to the interpretation, represented the highs and lows of love: "SZA's voyage mirrors the turbulence and good times that can be had in any relationship. Throughout the storms and moments of confusion, love always finds its way home.
Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times wrote an analysis of the "Special" performance, done by the lighthouse. To contextualize, he wrote the song discusses regrets about a man who failed to appreciate the best, special version of someone. In Wood's view, the lighthouse searchlight helps the concert attendee feel seen, reflecting the vulnerable, confessional qualities of "Special" and SZA's works as a whole. He said: "She puts all the detailed complexities of a messy personal life, with its betrayals and disappointments and compromises, into a highly focused beam that somehow makes her listeners feel uniquely [acknowledged]."
According to Billboard, the SOS Tour finished 2023 as the year's 38th best-selling tour, grossing $57 million and attracting at least 420,000 attendees within the boxscore tracking period. In total, the tour grossed $95.5 million and sold 674,000 tickets in 2023. Billboard wrote the "slow-burning success" of Ctrl on the US albums chart was a major contributor to the tour's commercial performance. To promote the album, SZA performed in places that could accommodate around 1,000 people, a relatively low capacity, such as Brooklyn Steel in New York City. Ctrl's five-year run on the chart was a sign of anticipation for new music and thus, according to them, bolstered high demand for a tour that involved larger venues. This was the cause of the exponential rise in boxscore compared to the Ctrl Tour.
The SOS Tour's first leg sold 238,000 tickets and grossed $34.5 million, based on figures reported by Billboard. On average, each show earned $1.9 million and drew 12,812 attendees. Dispersion of tickets sold per night was low, ranging from 11,069 in Atlanta and 14,383 in Toronto. San Diego attendance was an outlier. Due to the arena's relatively small capacity, it attracted only 8,700 people. The nights that had the most attendees and biggest revenue were the back-to-back dates. The New York City and Inglewood concerts, respectively, sold 27,000 and 25,000 tickets. Grossing $4.7 million were the New York City concerts, and grossing $3.9 million were the Inglewood concerts.
At Emo's in Austin, SZA performed to an audience of 1,550, grossing $31,000. When she revisited the city and performed in the Moody Center, the show's attendance multiplied sevenfold, and she earned 55 times the 2017 show's revenue. Her back-to-back New York City shows saw 1,376% more concertgoers and at least 10,000% more gross compared to when she earned $45,000 from 1,800 attendees at the Brooklyn Steel concert.
This set list is from the Columbus show. It is not intended to represent all dates throughout the tour.
This set list is from the first Melbourne show. It is not intended to represent all dates throughout the tour.
The following is a list of surprise special guests that accompanied SZA during the SOS Tour. A dagger indicates a collaboration between SZA and the guest.