Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, CA — May 16, 2024

Singer-songwriter Lizzy McAlpine, beginning a new era, brought The Older Tour to Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, CA. Following the immense mainstream success of her song “ceilings” through TikTok and critically acclaimed album Five Seconds Flat, the sudden fame caused McAlpine to go about this upcoming tour differently than she had done before. San Francisco was the fifth stop of The Older Tour and spans across the United States and select countries in Europe.

The stage setup mimicked a recording studio. There were light brown walls, a door, industrial lamps, chairs, and instruments strewn across. The lights dimmed and McAlpine’s band members walked onto the stage through the “control room” door and sat in a line facing the audience. McAlpine came out onto the stage last and all band members put on headphones to simulate them recording each song. The set kicked off with “The Elevator” and “Come Down Soon” off of her latest release, Older. Other highlighted tracks included “Staying,” “I Guess,” “Drunk, Running,” and “All Falls Down” which included lyric “23, and a sold-out show,” which made the audience scream and sing. For fans of Five Seconds Flat, she sprinkled in “doomsday” and “chemtrails.”

McAlpine didn’t address the audience much during the set except to welcome the audience to the show and to introduce the lead single “Older,” which she proclaimed was a very special song to her and played it more acoustically than the mastered version. Following, she treated the audience to unreleased track, “Force of Nature.” Prior to the pre-encore songs, she took the time to introduce and praise her band members individually. She explained that the set looked similar to the studio in which she recorded her album in. It felt like an intimate attempt to bring the audience into her recording space as if witnessing the process of the album creation.

After walking off stage for a brief moment, McAlpine and her band returned to the stage for a two song encore, featuring songs “erase me” and “ceilings” off of Five Seconds Flat. “ceilings” was met with so much love from the crowd with every word being sung back to her. The Older Tour is a prime example of an artist doubling down on themselves instead of putting out what others wanted of them. This incredibly genuine and intimate set to a sold-out crowd proved that the choice was the right one.

Words: Sabrina Poei

Photography: Deanie Chen