Illuminati Hotties can’t be still in San Francisco
Photos and Review by: Story DeWeese. Check out full gallery here.
San Francisco, CA — September 28th — The Illuminati Hotties “Can’t Be Still Tour” continued in San Francisco, CA at The Chapel on Saturday September 28th, as the third stop on the North American tour spanning from September 25th to November 3rd, 2024.
The night sprung into life as Maddie Ross, Los Angeles-based independent artist and songwriter, took the stage. Originally from San Francisco, this was Ross’ hometown show with many local friends and family in the crowd. This increased the sense of community amongst the kind, respectful crowd. Ross played an exclusive unreleased song describing the San Francisco audience as one of the first few groups of people to hear it. Ross also played songs off of previous EPs and newly released music. Inspired by “Sarah’s invitation to go on tour,” Ross recently created and released new music such as “Trash Fire,” a song that came out earlier this week (September 24th, 2024). Ross is joining Illuminati Hotties for seven of the planned thirty-one show tour across the United States and Canada.
Daffo continued the evening with a lively performance including their song released earlier this week (September 26th, 2024) titled “Get A Life.” In the “Get A Life” music video, there is a puppet in the likeness of the band’s front woman Gabi Gamberg and the puppet joined Daffo on stage for tour! As Daffo played, the crowd happily danced along. Gamberg gave a shout out to her school nurse who was a part of the evening’s audience, again tying back into the theme of the night which was community and belonging.
Illuminati Hotties’ Sarah Tudzin, an LA-based engineer and producer, won a GRAMMY for co-producing boygenius’ the record released in 2023. Tudzin has also been nominated for an additional three GRAMMYs. Tudzin’s outstanding production included the band sporting matching tops with a similar matching pattern on Tudzin’s guitar. The beautiful production continued with her own music throughout her set on the “Can’t Be Still Tour,” started off her set with, you guessed it, “Can’t Be Still” from her fourth and newest album POWER released last month (August 2024). The band also played additional songs from POWER such as “Falling In Love With Somebody Better,” “Rot,” “The L” and title-track “Power”. The new album reflects Tudzin’s coined term “tenderpunk,” including soft undertones and gentleness, while simultaneously exploring punk and rock themes. The band also played songs from their 2021 album Let Me Do One More. The entire crowd jumped to “Pool Hopping” and sang/screamed the lyrics to both “Joni: LA’s No. 1 Health Goth” and “MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA.
Tudzin’s love and devotion to her fans was apparent throughout the night. At one point, Tudzin even entered into the crowd to sing songs and start a dance party in the pit. It was obvious that she loved her fans and created a safe space for everyone.To keep things interesting at the various stops along the tour, Tudzin adds a unique, site-specific ending to “Sleeping in” and this show did not disappoint with a nod to the Bay Area with “we’re going down in the Bay.” An audience member even held up a sign related to this song, again reflecting the sense of community between the fans and artist.
In between songs, Tudzin hummed a 2-note melody acapella, and the crowd sang back the chorus of “freequent letdown,” from the 2020 album Free I.H: This Is Not the One You’ve Been Waiting For. Tudzin smiled as she replied, “Now let’s do it in time,” and kicked off “freequent letdown” with the band.In the spirit of community, Tudzin asked everyone to sing happy birthday to the drummer and Ross brought out a birthday bottle of Coke-a-Cola.Tudzin closed out the night with “Didn’t” from POWER and invited Gamberg from Daffo back on stage to sing and dance along.Maddie Ross and Sarah Tudzin married in fall of 2023. Their support of one another both on and off stage blossomed.