Chelsea Wolfe is bringing her sprawling new tour to San Francisco next month, with a September 16 stop at the Curran Theatre that doubles as a homecoming for the Northern California-raised artist. The show falls within The DARK World Tour, a run announced via ATG San Francisco on Facebook, with Swedish fingerstyle folk musician Jonathan Hultén joining as special guest. Tickets are on sale now, according to the same post.
The tour supports Wolfe's ninth studio album, *The Dark*, which she announced on July 21, with a digital release set for August 21 and a physical release to follow on September 18, according to Wikipedia. The record arrives through Loma Vista Recordings and was co-written and produced with longtime collaborator Ben Chisholm and producer Jennifer Decilveo, with guest contributions from musicians associated with Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, Pearl Jam, and St. Vincent, per Loma Vista Recordings. The DARK World Tour itself spans 43 dates across North America and Europe, according to Broadway World, placing the San Francisco stop within a genuinely global itinerary rather than a modest club run.
A Sound Shaped By Sobriety
The new album's heavier, more immediate songwriting reflects Wolfe's personal journey through sobriety since 2021 and her process of confronting inner emotional shadows, as The Guardian reported in its review of the record. That shift in tone gives the tour a different emotional register than some of her earlier work, built around themes of transformation rather than atmosphere alone. Wolfe herself has described moving between doom metal, folk, industrial, electronic music, and spectral balladry, per the original BroadwaySF post, and has been called one of the most singular artists in the world in that same announcement.
Fans buying VIP tickets get an unusual piece of ritual built into the night: attendees are invited to submit written items they wish to let go of or manifest, which Wolfe collects and later burns in a tour-ending ceremony, according to the Elsinore Theatre. It is a detail that fits neatly with an album era so explicitly framed around release and reckoning.
Sacramento Roots Bring The Show Home
Wolfe's Northern California ties run deep. Born in Roseville and raised in Sacramento, she began writing and recording gothic songs at age nine, influenced by her father, a country musician, according to Wikipedia. That upbringing gives the Curran date a homecoming quality that a stop in almost any other city on the 43-date run would not carry.
Opening the show is Jonathan Hultén, a Swedish fingerstyle folk musician who spent 15 years as lead guitarist and primary songwriter for gothic death metal band Tribulation before leaving in late 2020 to pursue his solo career full-time, per Guitar World. His acoustic, folk-leaning sound offers a quieter counterpoint before Wolfe's set.
The Curran's New Ownership Under The Giants
The Curran Theatre itself has been at the center of its own local story. In December 2025, the San Francisco Giants purchased the 103-year-old venue for $13.66 million from longtime owner Carole Shorenstein Hays, according to KQED, expanding the baseball franchise's downtown real estate footprint well beyond Oracle Park. Built in 1922 at 445 Geary Street in the Theater District, the 1,667-seat venue continues to have its stage programming operated by BroadwaySF and the Ambassador Theatre Group even under the new ownership, as Hoodline has reported.
That continuity has kept the Curran's calendar busy in recent weeks, with Hoodline previously covering the venue's Golden Girls Live return with new episodes and a Queen tribute concert featuring a full orchestra. Wolfe's tour is her rapid follow-up to her eighth studio album, *She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She*, which came out in February 2024 via Loma Vista Recordings, underscoring how quickly she has moved from one artistic era into the next.
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