Olivia Rodrigo, The Prince Who Was Promised

She started the show with "Bad Idea Right?" I was not ready for that. In her short career, Olivia Rodrigo has released two albums, and both of them have near-perfect opening tracks. "Brutal" and "All-American Bitch" are both revved-up, energetic statement-of-intent ragers. Both would've made great openers for Rodrigo's first-ever arena tour. But no, she went with her best song.

"Bad Idea Right?" wasn't a giant hit, but it was an instant 10/10 classic, at least to my ears. I was always going to be in the tank for a circa-now gleaming pop single that sounds like Veruca Salt or Letters To Cleo. That's absolute bait for a gen-X rock critic like me. But "Bad Idea Right?" is brighter and catchier and funnier and more fired-up than that description implies, and its lead riff immediately charged the atmosphere in Washington, DC's Capital One Arena last Saturday night. The crowd -- overwhelmingly young, probably 90% female -- instantly came unglued. Olivia Rodrigo can afford to open her show with a song as good as that. She's got great songs to burn.

Culturally speaking, Olivia Rodrigo's Guts Tour is old news. It started way back in February, and it's already on its second North American leg after wrapping up a European jaunt earlier this month. Rodrigo's sophomore album, which gave the tour its name, is nearly a year old. Rodrigo hasn't been a big factor in the so-called Pop Girl Summer, except to the extent that Chappell Roan, the year's biggest emerging star, got a major boost from opening the tour's early dates. At this point, Roan could probably launch an arena tour of her own.

The major storylines from the Guts Tour -- the Breeders opening the New York shows, the guest-appearances from '90s stars like Jewel and Sheryl Crow, the abortion fund that was disallowed from handing out Plan B to concertgoers -- have already come and gone. Sabrina Carpenter, once best-known as the alleged blonde girl on "Drivers License," is now a full-on star in her own right. In a pop marketplace that runs on storylines and conversation, Olivia Rodrigo isn't currently at the center of attention the way that Roan, Carpenter, and Charli XCX are. But fuck a storyline. The Guts Tour is fucking awesome, and few pop stars have ever restored my faith in the form quite like Olivia Rodrigo.

Still, the show's greatest special effect wasn't anything that a production crew might load into the truck. It was the crowd. People love Olivia Rodrigo, and they love those songs. For me, there's a big gulf between Rodrigo's fired-up rockers and her ballads, which are sometimes transcendent but more often forgettable. That's not how those kids felt, though. The audience was loud all night, but when the music was quieter, you could really hear 20,000 or so people roaring out every line. The DC show sold out months ahead of time, and these young women were fully ready for the opportunity to wail every line from "Traitor" or "Logical." In a room surging with that much energy, those songs hit a whole lot harder.

I'm old enough that I saw plenty of the '90s and '00s artists that inform Olivia Rodrigo's music when they were still at their peak. (The pre-show playlist was full of stuff like Bikini Kill and No Doubt, as if to underline a sensibility that was already plenty obvious.) Those shows were often great, but they never had Rodrigo's high-level production values or her loud, passionate fans. It's striking and gratifying to see someone turn that stuff to fuel a majestic arena-sized spectacle. It's not easy to do.

PinkPantheress, who opened the DC show, is similarly rooted in an aesthetic that's older than her. In her case, it's the UK garage and drum 'n' bass-addled dance-pop of Y2K London. PinkPantheress got famous during the pandemic, so she didn't have time to get her live reps up before she started playing big shows. Early on, the knock on PinkPantheress was that she was a sloppy and indifferent live performer. She's gotten a lot better since then, but her opening set wasn't the kind of thing that's likely to lead to a Chappell Roan-style explosion. Instead, she was calm and casual, and she might've gotten her biggest response for the piped-in Ice Spice verse during "Boy's A Liar Pt. 2." It was cute, but there was nothing visceral about it. The arena made her look small.

It's not fair to compare an opener to a headliner, but the arena did not make Olivia Rodrigo look small. The rigors of a huge pop tour don't allow for much spontaneity, and I could tell that we were getting the same setlist and stage patter as every other show on the tour. It didn't matter. One of the main jobs of a pop star is to channel and reflect the excitement of the crowd. On Saturday, the people in that arena were absolutely giddy to be there, and so was Rodrigo. That, along with the sheer overwhelming quality of the songs themselves, made for a glorious show. You should go see Olivia Rodrigo when you get the chance. When applicable, you should bring your kids.