The great Sam Smith seemed wistful, grateful, and dare we say happy during their almost 90-minute set Friday night, and you can hear them paying tribute to generations of RB and soul singers in multiple numbers.It struck me while watching Sam Smith at the Castro Theatre Friday — in what was the th ird show of a 20-show residency that extends into March — that I never realized the throughline between the Beatles, Dusty Springfield, George Michael, and now Smith. Growing up surrounded by American music, these were all once British kids who idolized rhythm and blues, and the Black artists who pioneered the music that gave birth to rock-and-roll, and didn't have the same racial hangups that Americans had in thinking about the music, or performing it. George Michael, consciously or not, continued the tradition of what Aretha Franklin and others referred to as "blue-eyed soul" music — and even got to do a chart-topping duet with Aretha herself.A generation (or maybe two) later we have Smith, a singer-songwriter with a stirring, resonant, androgynous tenor voice, who can croon and bellow with the best of them. Smith arrives on stage with a trio of Black backup singers, and unapolegetically embodies the musical landscape of these legends who came before him.Photo by Jay Barmann/SFistSmith opened the show with two of their hit ballads, "Lay Me Down" and "I'm Not the Only One," dressed in a ballooning cloak and tricorn hat, setting a theatrical mood. The third number, "My Guy," is an unreleased new song that Smith introduced saying it was a rare "happy song" in the repertoire, but the song then gave way to them stripping down to leather shorts and some hybrid pirate/go-go boots, along with a ruffled shirt, and a set of more upbeat hits — including "Dancing With a Stranger," the reality TV-inspired "I'm Not Here to Make Friends," and two excellent covers, Erasure's "A Little Respect," and Chaka Khan's "Ain't Nobody."Smith left the stage for a brief break while the band and backup trio covered Sylvester's "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," in a nod to San Francisco disco history.And in another nod to local history, the second half of the show included a recording of Harvey Milk giving his "You Gotta Give Them Hope" speech.Smith really hits a stride telling the story of being "in the most glamorous place on earth," at Elton John's house in the south of France, and having Elton sit them down and listen to Bonnie Raitt singing "Angel From Montgomery," originally written and sung by John Prine. Elton reportedly begged Smith to sing it, and some seven years later, it's part of this tour.Smith covers the song, dressed in a full-length black shimmering dress, bringing plenty of blue-eyed soul and that tenor belt, and it's easily the most rousing and moving number in the set. Below is video from one of Smith's New York shows in which they told the same Elton story and did the song. The show closed with the hits "Stay With Me" and "Hold On," and there was no playing around with encores. With a few waves and a blown kiss, Smith left the stage, and the house lights slowly came up.Smith sounded genuinely grateful, humbled, and thrilled to be performing for the reopening weeks of the Castro Theatre, and they spoke of first arriving in San Francisco years ago, and how "it felt like coming home."It's a feeling that many queer people have about the city, and how its embraced queerness — both its own, and its people's — virtually since its inception. No one can point to a specific moment when San Francisco became the capital of queer identity, and queer love, suggesting that it simply always was that way, whether that's entirely true or not. But Smith's lovely, polished, and deeply moving set in this residency feels like it's paying tribute, and it's doing so with the Castro's new sound system and spiffed up interior, re-christening this grand performance space as the sacred temple it is. ...read more read less