There’s a new bar for arena concert fashion, and Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS world tour is no exception. At Tuesday’s show at Climate Pledge arena—her first of two nights in Seattle—fans were decked out in sequined purple and silver ensembles (presumably repurposed from the Eras and Renaissance tours), custom Rodrigo-themed denim, beauty pageant sashes that read phrases like “Miss Put Him in Therapy” and “Miss Thought She Was the One,” and even pink berets (an ode to Rodrigo’s debut acting role in An American Girl: Grace Stirs Up Success).
I showed up in sparkles, too, in my dark blue vintage slip with hand-stitched rhinestones that I purchased from an LA street vendor. Attending a concert for work always makes me feel like an amateur. In my bedazzled lingerie, I sat next to a serious-looking Seattle Times reporter for the third time (previously at Madonna and Nicki Minaj). As usual, he was dressed in sports gear—I couldn’t tell you what team or sport—and scribbling in his notepad. “We have the same job,” I have to remind myself. “We just have different methods.”
The GUTS world tour is Rodrigo’s first arena tour, and it showed in all the best ways. Rodrigo entered the stage performing “Bad Idea Right?” with the high-powered vitality of '90s Gwen Stefani, complete with combat boot kicks, air punches, and head banging. Her spontaneity was refreshing for an arena pop concert, which are so often choreographed to an almost mechanical degree. Rodrigo was thrashing around the stage, interacting with her band, and engaging with the audience in a natural, unrehearsed kind of way, waving to individual fans as they caught her attention.
Rodrigo keeps her personal life fairly private, leaving live shows—even arena-sized ones—her best opportunity to connect with her fans. Throughout the two-hour set, she appeared genuinely interested in the crowd, encouraging fans to jump, shout, and release their anger. “When the lights go out,” she instructed, “I want you to think of something that makes you really angry and scream at the top of your lungs.” At one point, she led the entire arena in a round of “Happy Birthday” for one attendee and, later, she traded a guitar pick for another’s beret. “I’ll give it back,” she promised. (She gave it back, proving herself to be a trustworthy friend.)
While stage design isn’t typically exciting to me, I found myself audibly oohing and ahhing when a car-sized moon and giant twinkling stars floated over the audience. Rodrigo lounged on the crescent, like a paper moon souvenir portrait, and flew around the arena singing “Logical" and "Enough For You." Fans roared as she floated over to them. “Hi,” she waved to the nosebleeds. “I can see you up there!”
With ballads like “Driver’s License” and “Vampire,” Rodrigo’s vocal abilities are a given, but I appreciated her willingness for imperfection throughout the evening. Songs like “Pretty Isn’t Pretty,” “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl,” and “Comparison” are, after all, meditations on the unattainable standards for and pressures on young women.
When pop stars sing too perfectly, they are accused of lip-syncing (see: Dave Grohl’s comments about Taylor Swift’s Eras tour). But, god forbid her human qualities seep through her vocals… it’s simply too real. For this very reason, Rodrigo is often the target of criticism from TikTok vocal coaches, miserable men in the Pitchfork comments, and other scary corners of the internet. These “critics” are wildly misunderstanding her ethos as an artist.
I know a fan of the Runaways when I see one. When I was 14, I bought a copy of Cherie Currie’s Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway with my babysitting money (which was written before she started spewing alarming political opinions on Twitter). As I read it, I became completely enthralled with Cherie, Joan, Sandy, Jackie, and Lita. I cut my hair into a choppy mullet and wore a Jett-inspired homemade Sex Pistols shirt to gym class. From what I saw on the GUTS tour, Olivia and I share this obsession.
After slowing down the night with her beloved breakup songs including "Happier,” "Favorite Crime,” and "Deja Vu,” Rodrigo returned to the stage in a red sparkling body suit that recalls Jett’s iconic red jumpsuit and Currie’s infamous corset look. She sang “Brutal,” “Obsessed,” and “All-American Bitch” with the same spirit as “Cherry Bomb.” She changed outfits again for two encore songs—“Good 4 U” and “Get Him Back!”—wearing a graphic tank that read “Never Se(a)ttle.” My younger sister explained to me that she wears a custom shirt for each city. Like Taylor Swift's surprise songs or Sabrina Carpenter’s ever-changing “Nonsense” outros, it’s a small act that makes fans feel as though they’re getting something unique.
It’s easy to dismiss Olivia Rodrigo’s career as an inferior copy of the past. Taylor Swift and Paramore have sued her for song credits, she wears her Runaways influence on her sleeve (and glittery body suit), and her album GUTS is rife with references to Hole, Fiona Apple, and the Breeders. But what runs through all of these comparisons is an enduring feeling of rage, confusion, and insecurity experienced by young women. Sure, singing about being a young woman isn’t new, but how she conveys it is entirely her own—and it makes room for a whole new generation of young fans to do the same.
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