Courtesy of Chelsa Christensen
Singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo performs Friday during her sold-out concert at the Chelsea Theater at Cosmopolitan.
Wednesday, May 25, 2022 | 2 a.m.
To say that pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo is a hit with, among others, young women and girls is more than an understatement.
The 19-year-old who has rocketed to fame over the past year brought her Sour Tour to Las Vegas and the Cosmopolitan’s Chelsea Theater on Friday and played to a sold-out audience. The tour began April 6 in Portland, Ore., just days after Rodrigo won three Grammy Awards (Best Pop Vocal Album for her debut album “Sour,” Best Pop Solo Performance for her megahit “drivers license,” and Best New Artist). She finishes up the U.S. leg of the tour Friday in San Francisco, then heads to Europe for 15 shows.
From the moment she hit the Chelsea stage, Rodrigo was full of emotion and energy, fueled by the screams of her young admirers, who assisted with the lyrics on most every song in the 75-minute set. The lower balcony of the theater shook as audience members jumped up and down in unison to the more raucous songs on the setlist, including the opener “brutal.”
Along the way, the singer indulged her fans with stories behind the songs. She downplayed the process behind writing “drivers license” as composing “generally a heartbreak song.” In it, she describes getting her driver’s license but instead of driving past her boyfriend’s house “like we always talked about,” instead she takes a tearful drive through the suburbs because “you’re probably with that blonde girl who always made me doubt.”
When she had finished writing it, she decided to play the song for her best friend. “She looked at me and said, ‘I finally get why you’ve been so sad,’ ” Rodrigo said, explaining the ability of music to speak in ways that sometimes mere conversation can’t quite achieve.
Relationships — failed or otherwise — play a big role in her still-developing catalog. “I wrote this next song thinking I wasn’t good enough or pretty enough for this guy I was dating,” she said before launching into an emotion-filled rendition of “happier.”
In all, Rodrigo performed each of the 11 tracks from “Sour,” including a combined version of “enough for you” and “1 step forward, 3 steps back.” She added in “All I Want,” which she composed for her role as Nina on the Disney+ series “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.” “I wrote it from the perspective of my character, but not without some Olivia perspective too,” she explained.
Topping off the set were two covers, Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated” and No Doubt’s “I’m Just a Girl.”
In addition to her coquettish frolicking that took her from one side of the stage to another, a top a piano and grabbing cellphones from audience members to take pictures, Rodrigo sang brilliantly and showed her instrumental abilities on the electric guitar, the acoustic guitar and piano.
A short concert, by many standards, Rodrigo literally sent her fans home singing: As the house lights came up on the Chelsea, Harry Styles’ new release “As It Was” piped over the speakers and the legions of concertgoers leaving immediately joined in on its lyrics.
•••
Opening the concert for Rodrigo was British pop rocker Holly Humberstone. With a guitar, synthesizer and microphone on stage with her, Humberston put on a 10-song, 40-minute, one-woman show that set the tone for the evening.
A 22-year-old from Grantham, England, Humberstone may be best known for her late 2021 EP “The Walls Are Way Too Thin,” which she played as her closing song, right on the heels of the crowd-pleasing “”Falling Asleep at the Wheel.”
Olivia Rodrigo setlist
• “brutal”
• “jealousy, jealousy”
• “drivers license”
• “Complicated” (Avril Lavigne cover)
• “hope ur ok”
• “enough for you” / “1 step forward, 3 steps back”
• “happier”
• “All I Want”
• “Just a Girl” (No Doubt cover)
• “favorite crime”
• “traitor”
• “deja vu”
• “good 4 u”
