LIVE REVIEW: KESHA – THE FREEDOM TOUR @ SARATOGA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER (SPAC), SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY – AUGUST 18, 2026

Saratoga Performing Arts Center was already giving you a pretty good idea of what kind of night this was going to be before Kesha ever hit the stage Tuesday night. Short skirts, glitter, sparkles and an unbelievable amount of cheetah print. Seriously, so much cheetah print.

I expected the crowd to be mostly millennials who grew up with Kesha in the late 2000s and early 2010s, but it was actually much younger than I expected and, unsurprisingly, mostly women. There were also quite a few families with little kids, which was honestly adorable. About 18,000 people packed SPAC for the show, and by the time things got going, the lawn was completely insane. People were shoulder to shoulder, and it was so packed that some were sitting in chairs all the way up on the sidewalk areas.

At least the weather cooperated. It was sunny and in the mid 70s, pretty much perfect for an August night at SPAC.

Erika Jayne opened the show as DJ Pretty Mess, which was a fun choice that made more sense as soon as she got going. She played a lot of 2010s club mixes, which was exactly the right music for this crowd, and did a really good job getting everyone into it early. She wasn’t just standing behind the DJ setup either. She was constantly picking up the microphone, singing along and actively becoming part of the songs. Add in some good lighting and smoke effects and there was already a surprising amount of energy for the first act of the night.

Chromeo came next with a much more electronic feel. Their stage setup stayed pretty hidden for most of the set, with strobes and fog doing most of the visual work. From where I was sitting, Dave 1 kind of looked like Prince, and the whole thing was giving me Daft Punk vibes without the masks. At one point he let out this huge high pitched scream right as the strobes went crazy, and that finally got a noticeably bigger reaction out of the crowd. They also knew exactly what they were doing when they started teasing that Kesha was coming soon.

Then Kesha came out.

She opened “TiK ToK” wearing huge angel wings, and SPAC completely lost it. Nobody was sitting anymore. When she got to the famous opening line, it had been updated to “Wake up in the morning like fuck P. Diddy,” which obviously got another massive reaction.

But within the first few minutes, it became pretty clear that this show had a lot more behind it than just running through the hits.

After removing the wings, Kesha started talking openly about freedom, her past and finally being able to tell her own story. She told the audience that she hadn’t performed some of these songs in 13 years and had stripped away their original production and rebuilt them for this tour.

“Will you help me take back my songs tonight?” she asked.

That ended up being the theme running through basically the entire show.

There was a lot of talk about her “past life,” how messed up it had been and what it means to finally feel free from it. The symbolism was there almost immediately. She opened the night in angel wings for “TiK ToK,” then moved into “Only Love Can Save Us Now,” a song that talks about possession. Five minutes into the show and you could already tell she was using these old songs differently now.

The actual production was huge. Backup dancers joined her during the third song, and she was constantly moving around the stage. At one point she climbed onto the wall of the pit to get closer to fans, holding their hands, and later walked directly through the crowd while singing.

By the fourth song she had changed into a red and black leather outfit, picked up a guitar and launched into “Blow.” The smoke effects kicked in, the lights were going crazy and the whole place started feeling more like some giant outdoor rave than a traditional pop concert.

The energy never really dropped.

Between sections of the show, giant video pieces played that felt more like behind the scenes footage from an edgy Hollywood fashion shoot. They had this high fashion, model heavy look mixed with images of Hollywood excess and chaos. Questions like “Am I enough?” appeared before the videos shifted toward grief, vulnerability and eventually release. One line that stuck with me was the idea that you would rather be vulnerable and hurt than live dead.

About halfway through the night she started working in newer material, including “ORIGAMI!,” before circling back into songs like “Timber” and other older tracks.

She also stayed extremely interactive with the crowd. Sweaty towels went flying into the audience. She grabbed a fan’s phone and recorded a video. At another point she talked about creating Kesha Records and finally having her own label.

Chromeo returned for “RED FLAG.,” which gave their earlier set a nice payoff.

One of the quieter moments came during “C U Next Tuesday,” performed acoustically with her friend Kyle on guitar. Thousands of phone flashlights immediately went up around the amphitheater. They stayed out for a cover of Macklemore’s “Good Old Days,” which Kesha used as a thank you to the fans who have stuck with her from the beginning.

After “Die Young,” she left the stage briefly before returning for a three song encore featuring “CATHEDRAL.” into “Praying,” “Your Love Is My Drug” and finally “We R Who We R.”

The thing I kept noticing all night was that the crowd never sat down. Not for the new songs. Not during the slower stretches. Not after nearly two hours.

Kesha has enough hits that she could easily tour forever on nostalgia alone, but that clearly wasn’t what she wanted to do here. This show felt much more personal than I expected. She took songs connected to a really complicated period of her life and made them hers again, in front of thousands of people who were more than happy to help her do it.

And somehow she managed to do all of that while still throwing one hell of a party.

Setlist

• TiK ToK
• Only Love Can Save Us Now
• Warrior / Crazy Kids / C’Mon
• Thinking of You
• Out Alive, interlude
• Blow
• Sleazy (shortened)
• BOY CRAZY.
• Cannibal
• DELUSIONAL. (shortened, “Backstabber” intro)
• Take It Off
• The Drama / Ram Dass Interlude / FREEDOM., interlude
• ATTENTION! / JOYRIDE.
• ORIGAMI!
• YIPPEE-KI-YAY. / Timber
• RED FLAG. / Whip It / Dinosaur (with Chromeo, Chromeo remix of “RED FLAG.”)
• C U Next Tuesday (acoustic, Kyle on guitar)
• Good Old Days (Macklemore cover, acoustic, Kyle on guitar)
• Die Young
• THE ONE., interlude
• Encore
• CATHEDRAL. / Praying
• Your Love Is My Drug
• We R Who We R
• LOVE FOREVER., outro

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Live photography by Ben Rekemeyer for No Flash Needed. © 2026 No Flash Needed. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without written permission.