Daniel Caesar Brings Dewy Daydreams to the Santa Barbara Bowl

Like most people who have fallen in love with Daniel Caesar’s dreamy, R&B sound, I first discovered the Canadian singer’s soul when listening to him croon about his blue jeans in 2016. As a 16-year-old with a naive view of love and relationships, hearing about a forever kind of love through lyrics around ever-lasting “Japanese Denim” felt like a romantic epiphany. 

As I’ve aged, he’s continued to have a similar effect on me, and his audience has grown. 

Performing at the bowl on Saturday, Sept. 23, Caesar really embodied his lulling, romantic melodies. He swayed as he sang, surrounded by fog and mist, with blurry, dreamlike clouds and home videos playing on screens bordering the center stage that was walled in by a canopy of flowy, sheer curtains. 

Behind the fabric, Caesar was just a silhouette against a backdrop of his intimate, sonic mix of influences — soul, R&B, gospel, and rock. His music feels so head-in-the-clouds — if I can get away with using that as an adjective — so meditative and airy. 

The stage’s set-up, and the prominence of Caesar’s gorgeous voice that rang out over quieter instrumentals, spotlighted the singer’s pensive poeticism, and the daydreamy feelings his music conveys. 

From his reflective, slow heartache songs — beginning with “Let Me Go,” a hit on his 2023 album NEVER ENOUGH, about exhaustive dreams and losing sleep over a sticky breakup — to the tracks that tore down the curtains and brought in movement, strobe lights, electric guitar, and a keyboard, Caesar’s melodies captured and kept the crowd’s starry-eyed attention the whole way through. 

What came after the curtain fall (literally, stagehands came and ripped them down about halfway through the set) was his punchier and more experimental discography, starting with “Cyanide,” a deep, layered, and catchy tune about a spiritual and easy kind of love from his 2019 existential album CASE STUDY 01. 

To me, the last few songs he played were his best: the essential tracks from his Grammy-nominated first album, Freudian, inspired and catalyzed by his decision to leave home and question his faith at 17. 

As his debut album, he really made his mark, producing some of his most popular songs — “Get You” and “Best Part” sitting at the top — that was mesmerizing to hear live even without the vocal accompaniment of the songs’ featured artists (Kali Uchis and H.E.R.). 

But his new album made an impression, too. Now 28 years old, Caesar has really matured, and so has his music. Songs from NEVER ENOUGH came across as a grown-up edition of Caesar’s classic, heavy, introspective, and dreamy sound. Those mature, reflective musings were especially present in the heartbreaking serenade “Always,” which brought out the phone flashlights and closed out the set on a sentimental note. 

And, yes, he did play “Japanese Denim,” to the delight of my inner 16-year-old.