Hits, heart, and 'healing creativity': Khalid captivates The Anthem
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Time has a way of sorting pop music into two categories: songs you remember and songs that become part of your life. Khalid's catalog falls firmly into the latter.
You realize you already know every word, not because you've been brushing up, but because this music has been living in the background of the last decade of your life. It lives in car rides and dorm rooms and late-night drives home from parties you weren't sure you wanted to attend. Sunday night, he gave it all to the crowd in one tidy, joyful package. Khalid emerged from atop a towering shipping-container set in a custom jumpsuit, grinning like someone genuinely thrilled to be there. Before long, he was working through a string of crowd-pleasers, and the room responded exactly as you'd expect, with lyrics coming back louder than they left the stage.
After opening with familiar favorites, he paused to acknowledge an album he felt deserved a little more attention.
“I brushed over my last album,” he admitted, before quickly correcting the record. “But I fucking love that album.”
Rather than treating newer material as an obligation between the hits, Khalid presented songs from 2025's after the sun goes down as essential chapters in the story. The album's second track, “in plain sight,” landed particularly well after he introduced the song with a blunt observation about a previous relationship: “If you don't love me, just leave.”
What continues to separate Khalid from many of his peers is how effortless he makes everything look. The show was sharp. Four dancers, tight choreography, but nothing that felt drilled to death. Khalid moved loose inside the structure, comfortable enough to break from it, then step back in, all the while carrying smooth vocals that never seemed to strain.
The rest of the night zigzagged between a mix of old, new, and borrowed. “Who’s been listening to me since American Teen?” he asked. Nearly every hand in the room shot up.
Khalid's 2017 debut album, American Teen, has cemented itself into the pop zeitgeist with breakout hits "Location" and "Young Dumb & Broke." Nearly a decade later, those songs have taken on the power of nostalgia with fans.
The set leaned into that feeling. Khalid moved comfortably through different eras of his catalog, occasionally detouring into unexpected territory with covers of Simply Red's "Holding Back the Years" and Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car." Both fit surprisingly well within the evening's current, serving as reminders that Khalid has always excelled at songs that feel lived-in rather than manufactured.
One of the night's most wholesome moments arrived when he invited two fans onstage for "yes no maybe," asking them a simple question: "What does my music mean to you?"
The answer briefly transformed a packed concert venue into something much smaller:
"The creativity, the art that you embody, the human you are—is healing."
It was a small exchange, but it captured something essential about his appeal. For all the choreography, staging, and production surrounding him, Khalid's greatest strength remains his ability to make enormous rooms feel personal.
Throughout the night, he carried himself less like a pop star delivering a performance and more like a friend excited to share songs that mean so much to him.
By the end of the set, that giant smile never really left his face.
