Olivia Rodrigo’s pop star ancestors are precision dissectors and wild shredders, distressed and angsty. Her debut album, “Sour,” was one of the best releases of last year, and one of the most hopeful pop arrivals notes in recent years, as it quietly and confidently makes highly personal lyrics sound like the excuse for a brawl.
She went about balancing these clashing emotions from the start onstage Tuesday night at the Moda Center’s Theater of the Clouds during the first performance of her Sour Tour. The eye-rolling, heavy-exhaling teen-misery hymn “Brutal,” followed by the seething “Jealousy, Jealousy,” her entrance was foreshadowed by powerful guitar smears.
Rodrigo then sat down at the piano she’d been avoiding and leaned into “Drivers License,” the tune that had brought it all together. It was published in early January 2021 as a pandemic megasmash and the most significant pop song of the previous year, catapulting Rodrigo from minor Disney-show popularity to full-on pop-culture conflagration.
Even while everyone of the few thousand people in attendance seemed to be attempting to outsing her, she took her time with it here, displaying the piercing thickness in her voice. “That song got a Grammy, like, two days ago,” she sighed and grinned after she finished.
About Sour Tour:
The Sour Tour is American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo’s first concert tour in support of her debut studio album, Sour (2021). It will begin in Portland, Oregon on April 5, 2022, and will move across North America and Europe. It will end on July 7 in London, with 48 performances.
This raucous, cathartic coming-out-on-the-road bash was kept to a modest size. In just than an hour, I covered every song on “Sour” as well as a handful more covers.
There’s only a disco ball rising high overhead and gym bleachers on either side of the stage. Rodrigo is starting with more moderate-sized audiences, despite the fact that her hits might have easily filled arenas.
A few thousand admirers (mainly ladies, mostly under the age of 21 — like Miss Rodrigo herself) were dressed to impress for the big night, which kicked off in Portland’s Theater of the Clouds.
A lovely playlist of sad rocker girl karaoke standards pumped through the stadium following opener Gracie Abrams’ set: Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps,” Michelle Branch’s “Everywhere,” Fiona Apple’s “Criminal.”
What song was chosen to announce Rodrigo and her band’s presence on stage? Of course, it was One Direction’s “Olivia,” which was played three times in a succession, either due to backstage delays or Rodrigo being a greater Directioner than we thought.
The 19-year-old did not spare her Grammy-winning, top-of-the-charts-debuting breakout hit “Drivers License” until the finale, instead belting the sing-along prepared track early in the set in a genuine power move.
“Holy shit!” I exclaimed instantly. Rodrigo didve into the power ballad that gave her a household fame while en route to the piano, overwhelmed by the existence of her first major tour. It was also a nice break for her because she didn’t have to perform much singing because the audience took care of that.
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