As the fog rolled in on Friday evening, the pop star born Kesha Rose Sebert took the stage at the Presidio’s Tunnel Tops park for a surprise 30-minute set that was both a concert and a declaration of mutual belonging.

“What the fuck is up, San Francisco?” Kesha shouted, before launching into perhaps her most famous song, “Timber.” Kesha, dressed in a cow-print coat, told the crowd of her plans to move to the city, at one point asking, “Are you guys ready for Kesha in San Francisco or what?”

Staged in partnership with Live Nation’s “Summer of Live” campaign, the show drew fans in glitter and animal print. They were welcomed by drag performers distributing folding fans, which quickly became percussive instruments.

What happened at Tunnel Tops was not, it should be said, a first date. Kesha and the Bay Area have been circling each other for years, in a courtship conducted across dive bars, piano lounges, and amphitheaters.

It began in earnest in December 2019, when she played the Masonic Auditorium for the annual Alice in Winterland concert. In the summer of 2025, she returned to play Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View as part of her co-headlining “Tits Out Tour” with the Scissor Sisters. But the more revealing moments came between the formal dates.

Last November, she showed up unannounced at the Patio, a Palo Alto sports bar, with a handful of friends and no security, hung around for an hour, then climbed up on a leather booth and performed “Tik Tok” karaoke-style until a security guard — who did not recognize her — politely directed her down.

She posted the video to TikTok, the app that didn’t exist when the song came out, with a caption referencing the song’s own lyric: “But the popo took ‘police shut us down’ literally…” The bar’s co-owner later messaged her to apologize for the misunderstanding.

Then, in December 2025, she wandered into Martuni’s — the beloved piano bar at Market and Valencia, a room that has heard every heartbreak and triumph this city has to offer — and, during pianist Joe Mag’s regular Thursday set, stood up and sang Patsy Cline’s “Walkin’ After Midnight” for the stunned crowd.

Should Kesha make good on this romance and plant roots in San Francisco, the question of neighborhood matters. So what’s the best candidate?

There’s the Lower Haight: Charismatic and slightly disheveled. The neighborhood that brushes its teeth with whatever’s available.

There’s also the Castro: her spiritual neighborhood. Kesha has never stopped claiming the queer community as her people, and they have never stopped claiming her back.

On Friday, before leaving the stage, she asked the crowd to name the best gay bar in the city, and announced that she planned to keep the party going in the Castro after the show.

On Reddit (opens in new tab), one concertgoer said she told fans to meet her at Beaux.

“Before I leave, I brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack, ‘cause when I leave for the night I’ll be back by 11,” one Redditor commented.

San Francisco has always been a city that rewards the weird, the loud, and the unafraid. It was only a matter of time before it claimed Kesha as its own.