An emotional Kesha fought back tears as she performed her 2023 deepcut “Happy” during a show in Ohio on Monday night.
“There’s so many things I’d change, but I can’t,” she sang, squinting her eyes to hold in the tears, while physically holding in sobs. “There’s so many things I said that I wish I left unsaid/Time’s passin’ me by/ Gotta just laugh so I don’t cry.”
After the pre-chorus, and as the crowd applauded and held up lights on their phone, Kesha wiped her tears, saying, “Fuck, sorry,” before continuing the song. In one TikTok video, Kesha could be seen strumming the guitar and singing along, wearing a party hat on her head.
“Happy” closed Gag Order, her final album under her fraught contract with Dr. Luke’s Kemosabe Records. During a previous show in Phoenix, Kesha introduced the track by telling the crowd: “I made this song saying one day I’ll been happy, and truth is, now I’ve never been happier in my life.”
“Happy” is one of the few, stripped-back moments on the high-energy show, which includes many of Kesha’s party anthems, including “Die Young,” “Cannibal,” “C’Mon,” and “We R Who We R.” She also plays songs from her newest album Period, stylized as the punctuation mark (.), including fan faves “Joyride,” “Boy Crazy,” and “Delusional.”
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Kesha is currently on her Tits Out Tour, celebrating her newfound contractual freedom and Period, which will be released on Kesha Records, the independent label she launched in 2024 with distribution from Warner Music Group’s independent distribution arm ADA Worldwide. She’ll hit cities including Virginia Beach, Raleigh, Charlotte, West Palm Beach, and Tampa through August, before taking the tour to Europe next year.
