Concert Reviews

Danny Elfman Concert Photos and Review

by Brooks Robinson

Updated October 06, 2026

Danny Elfman – The Masonic – San Francisco – October 3, 2026

The last time I saw Danny Elfman perform on stage was Oingo Boingo’s last ever concert on Halloween 31 years ago. A lot had changed since then – that show featured a rather slight Danny, wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and bounding around the stage barefoot for over four hours. Saturday night’s show featured a completely transformed/metamorphosed Danny – shirtless, fully covered in tattoos, and jacked – as if he’d spent the intervening decades weight training in a prison yard instead of writing the scores to some of Hollywood’s biggest movies. His hair was now longer and chaotic, covering his eyes so that they only revealed their inner gleam when his head bent back to lean into a note. Danny was in San Francisco to rock – the songs performed were harder than their original versions, the setlist was tailored to push his heaviest work, and he leaned hard into the macabre vibe of their lyrical content.

Danny Elfman

There was no opening band on Saturday, the second show in San Francisco, and the second to last stopover on Danny’s fall tour. All eyes were on Danny, and despite a long history of crushing stage fright and anxiety, he pulled it off with aplomb. In a recent interview with the New York Post about the current tour, Danny said, “My live shows are going to be a mishmash of things. A collage that makes absolutely no sense being put together on the same stage. But there it is. That’s me. My idea was to have nothing fit at all... For me, my world, it's all about contrast. I love the idea of like throwing fun, crazy, dark, fucked up shit up there and elements and styles that do not have a single uniform aesthetic to them.” That thought describes this run of shows perfectly – yet despite hearing the 45-year-old Oingo Boingo classic “Only a Lad” played in the same set with the fan favorite “This is Halloween” from The Nightmare Before Christmas, it all seemed intentional, with one song flowing easily into the next regardless of their origin or release date.

The Masonic in San Francisco is a 3500-seat venue, but on this night not one of the seats was utilized. Fans were there to rock and actively participate, and the staging was designed to help facilitate that. The lighting was unique – the band wasn’t illuminated with any front lighting, but instead was lit from banks of lights on either side of the stage directed towards the center. I first noticed this because Danny’s moving profile shadow appeared on the upper balcony on either side of the stage. The side lights were complimented by spinning lights behind the drum riser that were in sync with lyrics during certain songs, pulsing on and off as Danny sang. Last but not least was the screen at the back of the stage. Most songs were accompanied by videos that were in perfect synchronicity with the music – a nightmarish job for either (or both) the video tech and drummer tasked with keeping perfect time, but percussion extraordinaire Josh Freese was more than up for the assignment. The videos depicted disturbing and grotesque imagery for many of the tracks – none more so than 2020’s “Happy” and 2021’s “Kick Me”.

A favorite moment was watching the pure joy wash across the faces of lifelong fans in the audience as Danny donned a jacket similar to Jack Skellington before singing “This is Halloween” from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Another came before “Monkeys on the Loose”, with its accompanying video – Danny asked “Do you like the monkeys? You won’t like these monkeys – they’ll fuck you up!”, which was met with a roar from the crowd. Almost every cellphone in the room went up when the first notes of “Dead Man’s Party” were played. This is the song that got me into Oingo Boingo during the endless summer between my high school graduation and the start of college, and has always been something powerful in my life – capable of transporting me back to the important moments of my youth.

Danny Elfman is a musical genius, floating effortlessly between film and television scores, alternative rock and industrial music, and writing music for symphonies to perform – most of this done with a wink to the listener to assure them that the frequent dark themes will eventually make way for the light…or not. He has scored over 100 films (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman, Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands), and many iconic television themes including The Simpsons, as well as collaborating with musical artists as disparate as Trent Reznor and A$AP Rocky.

He is used to working with the top musicians in the world, and his band on this night was a tour de force – Josh Freese (drums) and Robin Finck (guitar) from Nine Inch Nails, Matt McJunkins (bass) from A Perfect Circle, Nili Broshon (guitar) from Dethklok, with Dorothy Micklea (percussion) and Irene Kim (keyboards) rounding out the all-star group. All were immensely talented and interesting visually, while playing their part in telling the decades-in-the-making story of these amazing songs – presented on this night in a fresh and new way.

Danny Elfman – Vocals
Nili Broshon – Guitar
Robin Finck – Guitar
Josh Freese – Drums
Matt McJunkins – Bass
Dorothy Micklea – Percussion
Irene Kim - Keyboards

Setlist:

1) Sorry

2) Insects

3) Nothing to Fear (But Fear Itself)

4) Native Intelligence

5) Just Another Day

6) True

7) Sayonara

8) Happy

9) Upside Down

10) Ain't This the Life

11) On the Outside

12) This Is Halloween

13) The River of Life

14) Monkeys on the Loose

15) Dance With the Lemurs

16) Kick Me

17) Dead Man's Party

18) In My Head

19) Only a Lad

20) No One Lives Forever

Encore:

21) Who Do You Want to Be

Brooks Robinson Photographer & Writer

Brooks Robinson is an LA-based concert photographer, and 30+ year freelance camera operator for film, television, and music videos. He has photographed some of the largest film/TV projects in history, and hundreds of music videos in MTV's heyday.

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