Jun 2

Jun 2 Show Review: Pusha T Brings Dynamic "It's Almost Dry" Tour to San Francisco

Pusha T
w/ AG Club
The Regency Ballroom
San Francisco, CA
June 1st, 2022

Photos and Review by Jared Stossel

Pusha T’s “It’s Almost Dry Tour” features a minimalist stage design, while being headlined by an artist that embraces maximalist music. A good deal of the tracks that Pusha T delivered to the sold-out crowd last night at San Francisco’s Regency Ballroom was taken from his most recent studio album, It’s Almost Dry, which is punctuated by a Joker-esque laughing sound that reverberates throughout the room. The sound bite acted like an audible bat signal, beckoning those who hear it to prepare for the beat to drop, for the next verse to start, to scream the words back at the stage. The intensity of his stage performance is on par with some of the metal shows I’ve been to in recent weeks, and it was impressive to watch.

Despite the show starting an hour late, things got moving relatively fast with the show’s only opener, Bay Area rap outfit AG Club, taking the stage around 9 PM. AG Club were openers at the Denzel Curry show we covered earlier this year, and they were just as energetic and in-your-face as they were that evening. It took a song or two for the set to really hit its stride, but once it did, you were commanded to watch them, darting around the stage and spitting verse after verse with such ferocity.

A few minutes later, the lights went down, that Joker-like cackle flooded the auditorium, and Pusha T walked through the gate-like structures positioned on either side of the stage, launching straight into three It’s Almost Dry tracks: “Let The Smokers Shine The Coupes”, “Brambleton”, and “Just So You Remember”. Almost like he was making up for lost time, Pusha T flew through a powerful twenty-seven song setlist at lightspeed, finishing just barely before 11 PM. That being said, there wasn’t a single moment in the set that felt rushed; I felt compelled to watch him deliver verse after verse, and I was having even more fun watching the crowd react when fan-favorite tracks were performed.

The East Coast rapper threw in a few covers throughout the set as well, most of which made an appearance during the encore, paying tribute to the likes of Chief Keef, Future, and Clipse, the hip-hop duo in which he first rose to prominence in the early 2000s. But there was no artist in this selection of covers more prominent than Kanye West, his longtime collaborator and producer. West produced Pusha T’s critically acclaimed album Daytona and served as an executive producer on It's Almost Dry (alongside Pharrell Williams), and the appreciation of his producer is evident as he performed tracks like “Mercy”, an abridged version of “Runaway”, and even a KIDS SEE GHOSTS cover (“Feel The Love”). Amidst a roar of applause, the show ended with a cover of West’s “So Appalled”. Pusha T walked back through the faux-gates on the stage, and the crowd filtered out into the San Francisco night. This show ran for the perfect amount of time, delivering a lot of powerful material in a short period of time, while also not leaving fans feeling short-changed. This was an excellent hip-hop show, and Pusha T is a performer worth witnessing live.

Pusha T Set List
Let The Smokers Shine The Coupes
Brambleton
Just So You Remember
Hear Me Clearly
If You Know You Know
The Games We Play
Nosetalgia
Come Back Baby
Santeria
What Would Meek Do?
Infrared
New God Flow (Pusha T and Kanye West cover)
Numbers of the Boards
Diet Coke
Neck & Wrist
Rock N Roll
Open Air
Call My Bluff
Dreamin of the Past

Encore:
Mercy (Kanye West, Big Sean, Pusha T & 2 Chainz cover)
Move That Dope (Future cover)
Runaway (Kanye West cover)
Grindin’ (Clipse song)
I Don’t Like (Chief Keef cover)
Scrape It Off

Encore 2:
Feel The Love (KIDS SEE GHOSTS cover)
So Appalled (Kanye West cover)