Just like the rest of the country, St. Louis has fallen in love with Olivia Rodrigo.
The Blender by Kevin C. Johnson keeps you up to date with the latest concert news and more from the St. Louis music scene.
Tickets to Tuesday night’s “Guts World Tour” stop at Enterprise Center sold out in mere minutes, a feat seen throughout the tour. The pop-punk princesses was last in St. Louis in 2022 for her first headlining tour, where she played The Factory, an equally hot ticket.
Jumping from the 3,000-seat Factory to a major arena like Enterprise Center in under two years is quite the trajectory for the Grammy-winning Rodrigo, who is basking in her emerging-superstar era, fueled by two blockbuster albums: “Guts” (2023) and “Sour” (2021).
Her latest tour stop here instantly qualified as the show of the season, even before Rodrigo sang a single note Tuesday night.
Following a set by Willard, Missouri, native Chappell Roan, Rodrigo walked up from beneath the stage and greeted the packed house with a perfect sneer in her shiny metallic two-piece miniskirt set before launching into her lean 90-minute show.
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Admirably backed by her all-woman five-piece band and two female backing singers, Rodrigo got the crowd’s energy flowing early with “Bad Idea Right?” and “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl.” Rodrigo brought a comfortable confidence and boundlessly joyful demeanor to the stage that made her irresistible throughout. Her stage polish was perfectly applied.
Her set list consisted solely of songs off her two albums without any covers and teetered back and forth between her high-powered rock tunes and big ballads, often piano-driven.
“St. Louis ... I want you to jump, I want you to scream, I want you to cry if you feel like crying,” she said early on to the young audience. (Many audience members were accompanied by parents.)
“Vampire,” accompanied by heavy blood-red lighting, and “Drivers License” helped kicked off the sing-along portion of the show as the audience essentially served as an extra set of backing singers all evening.
“You guys are such good singers,” she noted.
“Traitor” introduced her troupe of all-women dancers who brought the interpretive energy we didn’t know we needed to several songs including “Deja Vu,” “Pretty Isn’t Pretty” and “Love Is Embarrassing.”
Songs like “Logical” and “Enough for You” came as Rodrigo floated above the crowd in a half-moon, embracing what’s now a trope for young female pop singers, but it’s a trope that somehow never gets old. Float on.
Now 21, she said she wrote “Teenage Dream” a few years ago when she was afraid of growing up. The song was accompanied by home video of her as a child, brandishing a microphone even then.
She said the idea for “Happier” came to her “while I was on this TV show,” a reference to her days on the clumsily titled “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” the Disney mockumentary show that helped make her a star.
At the recent Nashville show, Rodrigo brought out Missouri native Sheryl Crow to perform Crow’s “If It Makes You Happy” as a prelude to “Happier.” If there was a disappointment this show, it was that there was no Crow or cover of “If It Makes You Happy.”
When she asked fans if they liked the Hunger Games movies, the crowd went wild as she performed her “Can’t Catch Me Now” from the movie “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.”
She landed her most badass moment during “Obsessed,” which she blazed her way through with guitar in hand and tongue protruding, on her way to her soaring encore of “Good 4 U” and “Get Him Back!”
Opening act Roan delighted as well during her 40-minute set, a precursor to her upcoming headlining show at St. Louis Music Park in May. Promoting her “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” album, Roan was winning in her pink sparkly cowboy hat and leotard as she bounced through often retro-spun pop tunes such as “After Midnight,” “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl,” “Hot to Go!,” “My Kink Is Karma” and “Pink Pony Club.”
i love you forever @oliviarodrigo 😭💘 i miss you already thank you for the best night ever 💜🦋 #GUTSWorldTourStLouis @LiviesHQ pic.twitter.com/x22TZKNZmg
— zoya 🎀🍉 (@butlerslvrr) March 13, 2024
earlier today I was joking about being one of the oldest ppl at @oliviarodrigo’s concert screaming every lyric (cliche millennial woman ik) and don’t get me wrong, she killed it, but it did actually make me feel so old. a real “life comes at ya fast moment” lol don’t text #brutal
— jag (@jordanJAGthorpe) March 13, 2024
bad idea right? stop challenge #GUTSWorldTourStLouis @LiviesHQ @oliviarodrigo pic.twitter.com/kloOLteMmW
— Sarah 🎀 GUTS TODAY (@sarahtonin3021) March 13, 2024
could cry i love u so much @oliviarodrigo THE BEST NIGHT 💝💝⭐️💌💋🎀#GUTSWorldTourStLouis pic.twitter.com/4fcuADsJFJ
— cooper ౨ৎ⸆⸉ LIV TODAY (@urariescowboy) March 13, 2024
Parents PLEASE teach your children that singing along at a concert doesn’t mean screaming as loud as you possibly can (specially the parents of the preteen girls behind us at the #OliviaRodrigo concert tonight)
— K (@ksparky13) March 13, 2024
The Blender by Kevin C. Johnson keeps you up to date with the latest concert news and more from the St. Louis music scene.