Poppy’s Tour Kickoff in San Francisco Was Beautiful Chaos

Poppy has a habit of kicking off her tours in the Bay Area; she’s played at Cornerstone, the Great American Music Hall and the UC Theatre. Last night, the viral-video star turned experimental metal artist began her new tour, ‘They’re All Around Us,’ with a sold-out show at The Fillmore in San Francisco.

Attendees dressed accordingly: black lipstick, dark eyeshadow, fishnets, tights, spiked silver collars, a variety of facial piercings and hand tattoos, and plenty of Poppy T-shirts from tours past. The occasion summoned a range of ages, from undergrads to graying metalheads, lining up against the barricade at the front of the stage.

Poppy’s 2025 tour comes amid a flurry of activity for the 30-year-old. The night before the San Francisco show, she performed “the cost of giving up,” from her new album Negative Spaces, on Jimmy Kimmel Live! In Los Angeles. Just a few months ago, she received her second Grammy nomination for best metal performance for her feature on the Knocked Loose song “Suffocate.” (She may not have won that Grammy, but she went viral when a reporter mistook a vocalist from Spiritbox for her on the red carpet.)

At the show, Poppy’s set design was simple, with white risers and a screen that showed occasional black-and-white VCR clips, but her apparel was anything but. Poppy took the stage wearing a piece from Selkie’s Fall/Winter 2025 collection: a deep red, floor-length military style jacket with gold embroidery. For the first half of the show, she paired the jacket with a short layered skirt, switching out of it by the end to wear the jacket on its own with a matching pair of red shoes. Her mic stand, too, sparkled with red stones, while her guitarists wore all black, including matching ski masks that sparkled as they shredded.

From the opening bars of set opener “have you had enough?,” the crowd came alive, singing along while Poppy worked the stage, using every square inch available to get low and close to fans. I found myself screaming and thrashing right along with them when she transitioned into “BLOODMONEY,” a track from her 2020 album “I Disagree.”

It wasn’t long before the Fillmore floorboards beneath our feet were creaking and bending for the entirety of her song “crystallized.” The ensuing setlist included older songs, like “Anything Like Me,” while newer fans were able to bang their heads along to recent tracks like “push go.”

At one point Poppy asked the crowd to split into two sides. Immediately the temperature in the venue rose as we crammed together to accommodate a mosh pit. At one point, after a sudden, sharp pain on my shoulder, I turned around to survey the chaos. Whether the sudden siege against those of us up front came from a rogue wave of moshers or a fallen crowdsurfer, I couldn’t tell. But I at least fared better than the person behind me, who was hit in the head so hard that their hair clip broke into pieces.

“I wanna see a really fast circle pit!” Poppy exhorted toward the end of the show. “Can you do that for me?” Everyone scrambled to comply, a freshly formed pit gaining more people as concertgoers from the back moved up to participate. “Faster…” she said, watching the mayhem. “Faster!” Another wave of heat moved through the crowd as the pit picked up speed. When she was satisfied, her band kicked off “Bite Your Teeth,” making the audience roar. The energy remained high for the next song, “Concrete,” giving crowdsurfers the perfect opportunity to rise above the rest of us and be passed forward until collapsing at the foot of the stage.

As concert goers decompressed before the encore, Poppy’s voice floated out to the crowd from backstage. “Was it real?” she asked the audience. “Or all a dream?” She paused. “I think I liked it,” she decided.

We did, too.