Concert Review: Demi Lovato

Last Monday, Kevin and I went to see Demi Lovato at the Chase Center, here in San Francisco. It was a great show! As an autistic person, I tend to have excellent attention to detail, which can sometimes make me seem overly critical. And I may tend to be a bit more blunt when it comes to writing about live performance, but unlike the studio recordings like I normally write about, live performance is all about rawness, imperfection, and “going for it.”

Pop concerts are an interesting beast. They have comprised some of the best concerts I’ve ever seen (Pink, Kesha, Shakira, Robyn, Tove Lo) and some of the worst (not kissing and telling, although I will say that one of my favorite singers was so bad live that I thought it was a fluke and I got tickets to see her again and she was worse the second time). Demi Lovato was not in this top tier of elite performers, to be certain. But she still put on a great show!

Demi is a known belter. Therefore, her vocal parts are extremely demanding. She put on the full shebang: extensive choreography with fantastic professional dancers; vocally demanding performance throughout; full set and visual and light production. And that is admirable! And she did a great job. I think her voice faltered, probably too often, and she skipped too many high notes. 

I’ve found that the difference between an excellent pop concert and a mediocre one is the authenticity of the singer. People like Pink, Robyn, and Kesha are 100% authentic at all times while performing on stage. One of the best smaller pop shows I’ve ever seen was Aqua, who was touring North America for the first time, and they were genuinely thrilled and grateful to be doing what they were doing. Demi Lovato fell a little flat here too. I don’t know her personally, obviously, but it did feel like there was too much distance between who she was as a person and who she was on stage.

All that said, it was still a thoroughly enjoyable concert, minus the people in front of us who may have had a bit too much to drink and only spoke at 90 decibels. Our seats actually ended up being upgraded because they closed off the section that I bought our tickets in. The effect of Ticketmaster price inflation is very real.

Let’s move on to the show itself. The first video, below, is of Demi’s first major hit single, “Give Your Heart a Break” (2011). She did it as a fairly lowkey number, as the song is focused primarily on vocal operatics. She did well! 

Next, we have a song from her most recent album, It’s Not That Deep (2025), which was also the name of the tour. This song is called “Sorry To Myself.” It’s definitely one of the more personal songs on the album, which returns to her pop-singer roots for the most part. It’s a solid performance with some notable vocal skips. 

Finally, we have the closer, “Cool for the Summer” (2015), which was the song that really made me start paying attention to Ms. Demi, although I’d heard “Give Your Heart a Break” and “Skyscraper” and “Heart Attack” previously. It’s still a great song, and in my opinion, and more importantly, in Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers’s opinion, it was 100% the “song of the summer” that year. 

I will say that Demi’s fans are very devoted to her! I wouldn’t say the concert sold very well, but the people who were there loved every minute of it. 

A bit about It’s Not That Deep. I bought tickets to the show because I was so impressed with her recent album and I listened to it quite a bit last year after it came out. It’s pretty generic dance-pop music, but why reinvent the wheel? The album has some bangers and some very solid songs, and overall it is cohesive and enjoyable. 

The album’s highlights include “Fast,” the first single, which definitely falls into the category of “banger,” “Frequency,” my favorite song on the album, which includes one of my all-time favorite lyrics (“Under the lights, we synchronize, just you and I / No one can fuck up the vibe, fuck up the vibe . . .”). But you end up forgetting the lead-in, and she just repeats “fuck up the vibe” over and over and it’s honestly iconic. I also love “Little Bit,” it’s just a super fun song. “Here All Night” and “Kiss” are also great. Really, there aren’t any bad songs on the album. That’s why I like it so much!

My overall grade for Demi Lovato’s May 11, 2026 show at the Chase Center in San Francisco: B-. Good show! 

I’m going to Las Vegas next week for a show I’m really looking forward to seeing. I’ll keep you posted on that. See you tomorrow!