Apr 15

Apr 15 Show Review: Denzel Curry Brings One of The Year's Most Energetic Shows to the Bay Area

Denzel Curry
w/ AG Club, Mike Dimes, PLAYTHATBOIZAY
The Warfield
April 10th, 2022
San Francisco, CA

Photos and Review by Jared Stossel

Much like I noted in my The Band CAMINO review a little while ago, I realize that this show isn’t necessarily one that we usually cover. Most of the time, our show coverage is rooted in rock, heavy metal, pop-punk, and even dance music. But after doing this for so many years (and particularly during the pandemic lockdown), my interest in covering artists outside of my usual “box” has grown exponentially. I witnessed five minutes of Denzel Curry’s set at the Outside Lands Festival and was blown away (I was working for another company, so I didn’t get a chance to watch the full show). How the fuck could one guy generate so much energy amongst a crowd? So when I heard that he would be coming through Northern California on his current “MELTMYEYEZ” tour, I had to check it out.

From the second I stepped foot into the photo pit, a half hour before the show had even begun, you could cut the energy in the room with a knife; it was that palpable. A DJ up in the balcony spun tracks that got the crowd jumping before the first act had even stepped foot on the stage. When PLAYTHATBOIZAY, an up-and-coming rapper from Florida started his twenty-minute set, the barricade started shaking. And this was just the start of the show. What was it going to be like as the evening progressed? Mike Dimes kicked things up a notch, performing with the swagger of a headliner, before AG Club, a hip-hop collective from right here in the Bay Area, dominated the room for thirty minutes.

One of the most impressive things about this show was how quickly everything moved; because there weren’t any intricate stage setups, it only took about 10-15 minutes between artists to get onto the stage and keep things moving. By the time Denzel Curry took the stage around 9:45 PM, my thoughts on all of the artists I had just seen were finally sinking in. I was only able to sit with my interior monologue for a few moments before the crowd went through the roof, rapping Curry’s verses right back at him, jumping up and down as if they were intentionally trying to crack the floor of the theater in half.

Denzel Curry’s set had minimal production, with the expection of his DJ and a video wall behind him; he didn’t need anything more. His verses and intensity grab you, maybe more than any other rising rapper in today’s scene. For the next hour and fifteen minutes, we were in his world as he made his way through attention-grabbing tracks from his most recent album, Melt My Eyez See Your Future. While the crowd reacted strongly during these songs, the most electrifying moments came during performances from 2018’s TA13OO and 2019’s ZUU. Those records put Curry on the map; this current tour and album are what will make it so that people can’t ignore him anymore. This is one of the craziest shows of the year, and a “can’t miss” event.

Denzel Curry Set List
Melt Session #1
Walkin
Worst Comes To Worst
John Wayne
The Last
Mental
Troubles
Ain’t No Way
This Life
SIRENS | Z1RENZ
WISH
BLACK BALLOONS | 13LACK 13ALLOONZ
Threatz
SUMO | ZUMO
ULT
RICKY
Ultimate
SPEEDBOAT
CLOUT COBAIN | CLOUT CO13A1N
X-Wing
Angelz
The Smell of Death
Zatoichi
The Ills

Encore
DIET_