When Olivia Rodrigo announced the dates for her first-ever US tour, it didn’t take long for a minor uproar to occur. While she was playing venues whose size was considerable for anyone touring for the first time, including two nights at the 6K capacity Greek Theater in Los Angeles this week, they also didn’t match the demand. They sold out lightning fast, with many Rodrigo fans missing the chance to see her on this first go-around. The flipside would have been a Harry Styles-esque residency (the pop megastar is playing 15 arena shows in Los Angeles later this year), but Styles is three albums and a boyband career in. Rodrigo has 11 solo songs outside of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series to her name.
On Wednesday night, at the penultimate show of this American jaunt, it became clear that her touring strategy was quite wise. Not only because she just doesn’t have the amount of material to necessitate an arena-level production — even playing all of her landmark debut, Sour, an HSM:TM:TS cut, and a couple covers barely filled an hour — but the need to present herself in a reasonably sized space to connect with her fans proved essential. At the Greek, Rodrigo was able to look her fans in the eye, hear them singing back every lyric with such intensity that she sometimes felt more like a conductor than a performer, and relish the moment she’s spent 19 years preparing for. While the show might not have sold the maximum amount of tickets that it was capable of selling, the performance was constructed to be the best experience possible for both the artist and the lucky audience members who scored seats.
One thing that we can say definitively is that the framing of the tour has nothing to do with her readiness. The Rodrigo that took the stage on Wednesday would feel at home in a club or a stadium, playing an afternoon festival set or headlining Coachella. She moved around the stage with total command, a rock star and a pop star at the same time, and never for a second demonstrated any uncertainty that she was acing the assignment. Early in the set, she spoke about her own insecurity as a young woman, noting that coming to terms with insecurity that is a part of being human and something that every person in the audience had in common. Rodrigo knows that honesty about her teenage heatbreaks, struggles, and myriad emotions are what make her so engaging as an artist. But, it’s the ability to transcend them that make her a knockout of a performer.
Because of its compact nature, the show didn’t have lulls. The hits played like the hits that they are, and the non-hits and covers, well, they also played like hits. There wasn’t a bathroom break song, while tunes such as “Happier,” “Favorite Crime,” and “Traitor” all were impactful enough that they could be heard sung by fans all the way back to the parking lot at the end of the night. And if you ever need to have your breath taken away, just witness 6,000 people yelling “like a damn sociopath” in unison.
Last year, with the release of Sour, a lot was made about who the album was for. People tripped over themselves arguing whether or not it was okay for grown-ups (or men in general) to like Olivia Rodrigo, and it all got very dumb, very quickly. In person, Rodrigo fans come in all ages and sizes, but it would also be silly to not acknowledge that the teens (and straight-up children) should be treated as the VIPs for these events, with the rest of us being engaged fans, but still guests in their church. Tiny little Olivia cosplay outfits were everywhere as parents, aunts, and grandfathers escorted their young ones to their seats, with the kids breaking into little pods of adolescent angst and palpable joy. It was a show designed for people feeling the biggest emotions at extreme volumes, with Rodrigo positioning herself as a guide through these murky waters. The message: I’m not that different from you, our feelings are both completely individual and universal at the same time, and though we might look back at these emotions as overdramatic in the future, they are valid and true in the moment.
Though Olivia may throw in a few swears here and there, the ultimate feeling was that the young women in the audience were in good hands with Rodrigo as a role model. All night, it was hard not to be impressed by the sense of community. Opener Holly Humberstone, another excellent young songwriter, received an enthusiastic response from the crowd, who even gave her a phone flashlight display rarely seen for an opener, leaving Humberstone genuinely moved by the reception. Celebrities like James Cordon and Tate McRae were treated like royalty, with fans forming selfie lines to get pics with the audience (Billie Eilish was also spotted in attendance, but understandably she had to take more precautions from mixing with the crowd). And when it was all said and done, the fans gathered up bits of confetti by the handful to go with their Sour tour sweatshirts and Sour bucket hats.
For Rodrigo and her fans, every aspect of the night was treated as holy, its impact surely lasting long after the lights turned on and the venue emptied. It was pretty dang cool.
