Toilet sinks are streaked with purple glitter and misplaced hair ribbons adorn the lobby. Olivia Rodrigo has not but arrived, however the Hydro already looks like a teen lady’s bed room. On stage, Guts – the title of her Grammy-nominated second album – is spelled out by towering, melting candles. A soldout crowd, clad in selfmade merch, scream when the T teeters and falls; they understand it means the present’s about to begin.
Expectations are sky-high for the American singer-songwriter’s second UK tour, not least as a result of her unique opening night time was rescheduled resulting from ongoing technical issues with Manchester’s new Co-op Reside area. Rodrigo’s earlier go to, in 2022, deliberately performed to small venues that would barely meet demand; a smart move she has described as “final apply” in stagecraft, designed to stability out her speedy rise to fame in 2021.
That persistence, and apply, pays off tonight. Rodrigo skips on stage with the proud, puffed-out chest of a WWE wrestler, over the surging bass line from her sarcastic pop-punk rager Unhealthy Thought Proper? Her band would have been riot grrrl heroines in one other decade; they careen by way of an prolonged outro full of guitar solos whereas Rodrigo pogos and headbangs and air-guitars with dorky dance-like-nobody’s-watching exuberance.
Collaging a grungy, 90s MTV vibe with silver-screen glamour, the present flicks between all-out rock present and chic, intimate pop balladeering. Rodrigo tucks her Dr Martens beneath a grand piano to carry out her break-out single Drivers License, however later makes use of them to stomp on a digicam set into the stage. For Vampire, a showstopping, stormy rock opera, she is forged in black and white like a cursed silent movie heroine, but nonetheless curls her lip to snarl the tune’s livid accusation: “Fame-fucker.”
Rodrigo rides across the area on a glowing half moon prop to sing Logical, a Guts album monitor a couple of manipulative relationship, however ear-splitting cheering from every part of the gang as she floats nearer relegates it to background music. Different ballads shine with far easier therapy; she sits cross-legged with guitarist Daisy Spencer for Happier, from her blockbuster first album Bitter, and turns it right into a campfire tune.
The 21-year-old leads her band with breezy confidence, somersaults her ballads’ massive notes with ease and as a substitute focuses on delivering feeling. No surprise she saves Good 4 U and Get Him Again! for the encore: in a feat of stamina, she runs, leaps, bounces and screams by way of the 2 pop-rock teen anthems with whole dedication to their messy, witty lyrics.
However it’s on All-American Bitch that she straight confronts these huge expectations. A cathartic, sarcastic tune impressed by Joan Didion, the monitor implodes beneath the burden of societal strain – “I’m constructed like a mom and a complete machine” goes one brutal line. “Take into consideration somebody that pisses you off and scream your fucking heads off!” Rodrigo yells and 1000’s of younger ladies take the cue. “I do know my place … and that is it,” she shrieks, each inch at residence.
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