Olivia Rodrigo, OVO Hydro, Glasgow, review: A high energy pop-rock extravaganza

Woe betide anyone who didn’t get the memo: minidress, combat boots or Converse trainers, and a strictly black, purple, and pink dress code. The Olivia Rodrigo fan uniform is well-established by now, three years into the American singer’s stardom — as evidenced by the thousands of girls streaming along the appropriately pink walkway to Glasgow’s OVO Hydro arena.

Rodrigo was supposed to kick off the UK leg of her world tour — which spans a daunting 77 dates — last weekend, at Manchester’s ill-fated Co-Op Live arena, but she became the latest casualty of the new venue’s bungled opening. Instead, Scotland received the first taste of her pop-rock theatrics on Tuesday night.

She emerged on stage to unapologetically loud guitar, pouting and snarling to match the energy of her all-girl band. This was more rock show than pop extravaganza — though there were costume changes, dancers, and a suspended crescent moon, upon which Rodrigo floated above the young crowd, through a sea of stars not unlike the glow-in-the-dark kind you might stick on your teenage bedroom ceiling.

Mostly, though, she gambolled about, a small fishnetted figure clearly at ease in front of the cameras that magnified her every move. The 21-year-old is a former Disney star, but her music veers away from polished piety towards messy emotion and self-deprecation, from the gleeful expletives that litter her verses to her chipped nail varnish on the cover of her latest album, Guts.

On opening song Bad Idea, Right? she stumbled towards an unwise hook-up with an old flame. Later in the show, she obsessed over her new boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend — “I know she’s been asleep on my side of your bed” — and her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend: “So when you gonna tell her that we did that too?”

She used her musical theatre background to her advantage, whether through lip-wobbles, Gwen Stefani-style vocal gymnastics, impeccable comedic timing, or sheer lung power. She yo-yoed between girlish and unladylike, between piano ballad and angsty rock, taking to a grand piano to perform her breakthrough 2021 hit Drivers License. That track may have catapulted her to the big time, but her raucous final few songs — which included the Elvis Costello-borrowing Brutal and enjoyably bratty Good 4 U — set her apart from her chart-topping peers.

Whether rocking out with her band or singing happy birthday to a fan, Olivia Rodrigo seemed every bit the girl at school you longed to be, or at least be friends with: uncomplicated, relatable, fun. If she’s playing a part, she’s doing it disarmingly brilliantly.