JoJo performs at the Warfield in San Francisco on March 5, 2025. Aaron Lee/STAFF.

SAN FRANCISCO — Soulful pop artist Joanna Levesque, better known as JoJo, continues to ride the wave of her musical renaissance to new heights. Her Too Much to Say Tour made a midweek stop at the Warfield on Wednesday, packing a near-capacity crowd shoulder-to-shoulder to see the dynamic vocalist.

This latest run comes on the heels of her latest EP, NGL, and memoir Over the Influence. She’s faced her share of ups and downs, most notably an extensive label battle that put her career on hold for years, but landed on her feet and continues making the most of it.

“Right now I’m in the season of reckless vulnerability,” she said early on in her 70-minute headlining set. “Tonight’s about sharing and telling stories.”

She related that spirit of openness to the current state of the world, suggesting it as a tool to fend off being cast aside.

“There’s forces that don’t want us to be up close and intimate, and loving each other,” she said.

JoJo performs at the Warfield in San Francisco on March 5, 2025.

The production was relatively simple, with a single gray curtain backdrop and a tilted bridge connecting two risers of varying heights on which a trio of musicians played. The casting of the lights transformed the simple backdrop to reflect the mood of the music.

The setl included NGL in its entirety along with a selection of material spanning the singer’s career. JoJo began with new tracks “off again” and “Nobody.”

“You might know the words to this next one; you mind if we take this back to 2004?” she asked to the approval of the crowd before “Baby It’s You.”

Her range is impressive and her powerful vocals runs got a loud response from the crowd, doubly so when she would strike a fierce pose at the end of the note. The set was well-paced, Levesque nimbly moving through the material while leaving time to chat along the way.

“Over the years I picked up a lot of bad habits and didn’t know what to do with them or where to put them,” she said prior to “Bad Habits.” “I tried to distract myself and not feel, but it didn’t always work very well.”

She powered through her remix of Drake’s “Marvin’s Room,” “Ready to Love” and “Start Over.” Those were followed by some covers that she said have scored her life, including  Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” and “Love Galore” by SZA.

“The way she writes about love is just so raw,” JoJo said. “I was losing my shit when I saw her on the Super Bowl.”

A fan named Dante was picked out of the crowd to come up and sing on SWV’s “Weak.”

“This song has been a part of my career since I was a fetus,” JoJo said. “Are there any ‘90s babies in here?”

Dante wasn’t timid or nervous, setting down his bag and putting on shades before soulfully harmonizing with the night’s headliner.

The show reached its crescendo during hits “Leave (Get Out)” and “Too Little Too Late,” which had fans dancing in the aisles, screaming the lyrics at each other’s faces. Levesque seized the moment, skipping an encore break and launching into the closing sequence of “Good Thing” and “Porcelain,” both upbeat danceable tracks kept the crowd jumping and dancing to the final note.

Emmy Meli performs at the Warfield in San Francisco on March 5, 2025.

SoCal singer Emmy Meli opened the concert, accentuating her expressive and powerful voice. Though she didn’t have a band with her, the backing tracks replicated one with traditional instrumentation rather than relying on loops or synths. Meli brought an earnest enthusiasm to the stage, chatting with the crowd between songs and getting a laugh as she dramatically tilted her head back to sip from a water bottle.

“You are one of the first to hear this song!” she announced before playing her forthcoming single, “God’s Favorite.”

Meli also offered a message of compassion and belonging, adding her appreciation for the night’s headliner, calling the bill the “divine feminine tour.”

“Wealth is something inside you that is only yours and no one can take that away,” she said. “There are those who want us to forget ourselves, they want us to forget each other, they want us to forget love and joy.”

Follow writer Mike DeWald at mikedewald.bsky.social. Follow photographer Aaron Lee at Instagram.com/aaronxphotos.