There are some concerts you go to because you love the artist, and then there are concerts that make you realize just how much of your own life is attached to the music you are hearing. Kesha’s FREEDOM Tour, which stopped at the completely sold-out PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey, on Wednesday (August 19), was very much the latter for me.
I was in eighth grade when “TiK ToK” came out. I remember the song taking over everything — the radio, school dances, sleepovers, birthday parties, the little speakers we carried around like they were portable nightclubs. Kesha was the party girl, and at the time, it felt like she had somehow figured out the exact formula for being completely unapologetic about having fun. There was glitter, there was eyeliner, there were ripped clothes, there were lyrics that definitely made you wonder how they were allowed on the radio, and there was a sense that the night could become completely unhinged at any moment.
So, naturally, walking into a music venue that shaped me all these years later, I found myself wondering what a Kesha audience looks like in 2026.
I expected a lot of millennials reliving their younger years. What I didn’t expect was just how many high schoolers and Gen-Z fans would be there, singing along to songs that were released before some of them were even old enough to remember them. But, really, I shouldn’t have been surprised. The party-girl aesthetic is having a very obvious second life right now, from the resurgence of early-2000s and 2010s fashion to the return of hyper-pop’s loud, chaotic energy. And if you are going to revisit that era, why wouldn’t you go straight to the woman who helped create it?
The fashion was probably the biggest giveaway that Kesha’s party-girl era is officially having a revival. All around the venue, girls showed up in shredded tops and sequined micro shorts that looked like they had been pulled straight out of my own 2014 wardrobe that I immediately wished I had kept. It was equal parts nostalgic and hilarious to see an outfit I once considered retired suddenly feel very much back. The crowd also had its fair share of millennials, many of them with drinks in hand and seemingly ready to relive their college and post-grad party days for the night.
Before Kesha arrived, Erika Jayne got the night started before Chromeo took the stage and pushed the already energetic Jersey crowd even further. By the time the lights went down for Kesha, the anticipation was palpable. And when the opening notes of “TiK ToK” finally hit, the reaction was exactly what you would expect from a room full of people who had been waiting years to scream those words together again. Except this time, it wasn’t just the people who grew up with the song.
That was the part that stayed with me.
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Kesha’s set was a smart balance of everything that made fans fall in love with her in the first place and everything that has made this new chapter so exciting. She opened with “TiK ToK” before moving into “Only Love Can Save Us Now” and a medley of “Warrior,” “Crazy Kids” and “C’Mon,” immediately reminding the audience that her catalog is much bigger than the one song that first introduced so many of us to her. From there, she moved through “Thinking of You,” “Out Alive,” “Blow,” “Sleazy,” “BOY CRAZY.,” “Cannibal,” “DELUSIONAL.” and “Take It Off,” with each song bringing a slightly different version of Kesha’s personality to the stage.
The crowd absolutely lost it for the Animal-era songs. “Take It Off” was one of those moments where it almost didn’t matter whether you were 15 or 35; everyone knew exactly what to do. “TiK ToK,” “Cannibal” and “We R Who We R” carried the same kind of electricity, and hearing an entire venue sing those songs back to Kesha made it very clear that these aren’t simply throwback hits people remember fondly. They are songs that have continued to live in people’s lives.
Kesha has always been an unusually physical performer, and that hasn’t changed. She moved around the stage with the confidence of someone who knows exactly how to command a massive outdoor venue, bouncing between elaborate bodysuits, oversized accessories, dramatic visuals and choreography without ever looking like she was trying too hard to prove she could still do it. If anything, there was a looseness to her performance that made it more enjoyable. She looked like she was having fun up there. And that matters.
Because Kesha doesn’t need to recreate the version of herself who dominated pop music fifteen years ago. She has already been that woman. Watching her now is much more interesting because she gets to decide what comes next.
The FREEDOM Tour is more than just nostalgia, and that became especially clear as the show moved away from the straight-up party anthems and into the heart of this new chapter.
“The Drama,” “Ram Dass Interlude” and “FREEDOM.” created one of the night’s biggest transitions, followed by “ATTENTION!,” “JOYRIDE.,” “ORIGAMI!” and “YIPPEE-KI-YAY.” These songs feel different from the Kesha many of us knew in middle school, but they don’t feel disconnected from her. In fact, they sound like the natural evolution of an artist who has spent years figuring out who she is when nobody else gets to define her.
That is what makes the word freedom feel so important here. This isn’t simply a new tour title or a convenient theme. Kesha has spoken about the tour as a celebration of survival, liberation, self-expression and radical joy, and after everything she has experienced throughout her career, there is something incredibly moving about watching her build an entire live show around those ideas. There is a sense that she is finally allowing herself to enjoy the parts of being Kesha that once felt complicated. The outrageous clothes. The sexuality. The humor. The weirdness. The glitter. The giant pop songs. The vulnerability. She isn’t apologizing for any of it, and she isn’t allowing the difficult chapters of her past to become the only story she tells.
Following the release of her 2025 album Period, Kesha has continued building her career on her own terms through Kesha Records, releasing new music that gives her room to experiment and play with the parts of her artistry that have always made her compelling. The FREEDOM Tour feels like the live manifestation of that independence: familiar enough to make longtime fans emotional, but new enough to make it clear that Kesha is not interested in simply living off the past.
For a concert that is so heavily rooted in celebration, some of the quieter moments ended up being among the most memorable. Kesha slowed things down for an acoustic “C U Next Tuesday” before performing Macklemore’s “Good Old Days” acoustically. It gave the audience a chance to take a breath after what had been an incredibly high-energy stretch of the show.
Those moments were important because they kept the night from becoming one long nostalgia trip. Kesha has always had more emotional range than the party-girl label gave her credit for, and the quieter portions of the set allowed that side of her to come through without stripping away the personality that makes her so distinctive.
For her encore, Kesha gave the audience every version of herself that we’ve ever known — the spiritual, the emotional, the romantic, the rebellious and, of course, the girl who just wants everyone to dance. Kicking things off with “CATHEDRAL.” the 39-year-old then delivered a stunning yet emotional rendition of “Praying” before bringing the energy back up with “Your Love Is My Drug,” and “We R Who We R.”
I looked around and saw exactly what I had been wondering about at the beginning of the night: so many different generations with different reasons for being there, but somehow everyone knew the same words. And that is Kesha’s greatest trick. The pop star isn’t trying to convince us that 2010 is back. Instead, she’s taking everything people loved about that era and bringing it into a chapter that belongs entirely to her.
If you have the chance to see the FREEDOM Tour before it wraps, take it. As of today (August 21), there are only six dates remaining: August 21 in Mansfield, Massachusetts; August 22 in Uncasville, Connecticut; August 25 in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania; August 26 in Grand Rapids, Michigan; August 29 in Tinley Park, Illinois; and August 30 in Noblesville, Indiana. You learn more about each show and grab tickets by visiting her website at https://keshaofficial.com/tour.
