The Go-Go’s perform at the Warfield in San Francisco on May 13, 2025. Photos courtesy Nick Buckmaster.

SAN FRANCISCO — Although iconic rock quintet The Go-Go’s last graced a San Francisco stage in 2022, riding the high of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, that was without original drummer Gina Schock, who’d sat out the reunion to recover from surgery. That makes the last time the five members played in the Bay Area all the way back in 2018. Tuesday’s show at the Warfield was rarer still because it was just one of five on their schedule and one of only two that aren’t part of a festival (Coachella, Cruel World).

Vocalist Belinda Carlisle, guitarist-keyboardist Charlotte Caffey, bassist Kathy Valentine, singer-guitarist Jane Wiedlin and Schock—who calls the Bay Area home now—are all in their 60s or 70s, but their 75-minute set was impressively fiery from start to finish, full of rattling percussion, forceful guitar riffs and energetic bass lines.

In colorful outfits, playing sparkly instruments, The Go-Go’s covered their biggest hits while working in several lesser-known songs. They kicked off on a high note with “Vacation,” a confectionary rush. The sound was crisp throughout the night, with each instrument and the vocals mostly clear in the mix, but this was especially true on the opener. Carlisle twirled in place before starting to work the stage on the next song, a hard-rocking “Tonite.”

Carlisle and company chatted with the audience and with each other, from time to time, as if they were in a rehearsal studio. During the show’s one endearing hiccup, Carlisle (or possibly the others) lost her place during “Fading Fast.” Carlisle called for a stop in their action and then explained the band had just rearranged the song the previous night after playing it a different way for months. A lively conversation followed in which the members each took the blame for the mess-up.

“Who cares, it’s the fucking Go-Go’s!” Schock said.

Valentine and Wiedlin busted out some dance moves during “Skidmarks on My Heart,” and Carlisle got the audience to sing part of the first verse of “Lust to Love.” The crowd was just OK, but the multi-part harmonies by The Go-Go’s on that song and “Get Up and Go” were impressively powerful. It’s easy to imagine how a young Gwen Stefani would have been inspired to find her own voice in a song like the latter one.

The band also played moody rocker “Automatic” in concert for the first time sine 2018.

“It’s about sex,” Carlisle said by way of introduction, before trying to remember what album it’s from — like the majority of the set, it was from 1981’s Beauty and the Beat.

Carlisle mentioned at one point that members of San Francisco band The Avengers were in attendance, as well as Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys. Neither made an appearance so The Go-Go’s relied solely on their own energy to drive the performance.

Excitement seemed to grow with the ringing piano intro to “Head Over Heels.” Following the uptempo “This Town,” “Stuck in My Car” and “The Whole World Lost Its Head,” the band closed out the main set with a euphoric one-two punch of “Our Lips Are Sealed” and “We Got the Beat,” working bits of Chappell Roan’s “HOT TO GO!” into the chorus.

“This has been not the most perfect show, but it has been a lot of fun,” said Schock, stepping out from behind the drum kit toward the end, before the band concluded their show with “Fun With Ropes” and “Can’t Stop the World.”

San Francisco punk band Frightwig opened the show with its own raucous and sometimes touching set.

“We started in 1982 next door!” cofounder Mia d’Bruzzi said. The band includes cofounding vocalist-bassist Deanna Mitchell, as well as Tina Fagnani, and Rebecca Sevrin.

The politically minded act, which headlined The Chapel recently, showed off several sides to its music, most of them aggressive.

“Crazy World” was a sludgy mid-tempo rocker with phase-shifted effects. Mitchell used the opportunity to talk about those who didn’t vote in the last Presidential election. Frightwig followed that with the churning and bluesy “Hear What I Say” and uptempo, fast-strummed punk cut “War on Women.”

The rollicking “Ride Your Bike” recalled The Sweet’s “The Ballroom Blitz” and Motörhead’s “Ace Of Spades.” The latter half of the band’s set was highlighted by 60-second punk tune “Aging Sux” and “Shine Your Light,” a twinkling guitar ballad written by the band’s late drummer, Cecilia Kuhn, who passed away from cancer in 2017.

Contact editor Roman Gokhman at Bluesky.