Concert Review: Vulnerability meets confidence in Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘The Unraveled Tour’

At the beginning of Olivia Rodrigo’s set for the “The Unraveled Tour,” the stage is full of flowers – like, so full you start to question how she could possibly move around the stage at all. And yet, move she does – or frolic, more like. Rodrigo spends the first section of her show, which she played on Nov. 11 and 12 at State Farm Arena, looking like something out of a Sofia Coppola movie. In a white babydoll dress, she skips and kicks her way through makeshift fields of flowers while belting out buzzy love songs like “drop dead” and “u + me.” But, as the show goes on, the flowers gradually disappear. The seasons change, and she comes out on the other side reborn. Rodrigo’s third studio album, “you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love,” follows the course of a relationship from that buzzy, first love euphoria to complete and utter heartbreak. Her show is similarly structured, moving from the first blush of spring through the cold dark of winter before she rises again, fresh faced and expectations high. The album, like so much of her work, is equal parts clever and devastating, and as a performer, Rodrigo works to carry that dichotomy. In a lot of ways, she’s not your typical pop star, with choreographed dances and elaborate setups. But what she does have is a groundedness that eludes so many – and she can sing the hell out of a ballad. As the show goes on, crew members run up in droves in between acts of the show and remove large swaths of flowers, signaling that we are moving into a different season of Rodrigo’s love story. Spring and summer are populated by big, rocking numbers like “so american” and “my way,” before she moves into moodier songs like “purple,” and finally into some of her more emotive, painful work – songs like “begged,’ “cigarette smoke,” and “less.” Musically, Rodrigo’s band (made up of all women and non-binary musicians) add immensely to performance of her songs live. She’s always had a pop punk sort of aesthetic, but the live show turns up the knobs on the “punk” part of that equation. Rodrigo plays “traitor,” a ballad from her first album “SOUR” characterized by acoustic guitars, with an electric, and “bad idea right?” is far more hardcore than its album cut. Every song feels heavier in the most head-bangin’ way. Rodrigo isn’t much of a talker during her shows – and when she does do something like tell the story about how she wrote a particular song, she almost comes off a little shy. But, that’s part of her appeal. For as game as she is to jump up and down, to uproot fake flowers and throw them around during “good 4 u,” to encourage the crowd to scream all their anger away during “all american bitch” – she also can come across exceedingly vulnerable. It’s sort of a magic trick – it takes so much confidence and energy to do what she can do, but she’s still able to show a much softer side of herself. That softness is characterized by a voice that has only gotten stronger as she’s gotten older – and she’s only 23. The richness of her voice is often drowned out by screaming fans (and it’s hard not to scream some of her lyrics, not to feel that catharsis), but it comes through so dynamically in softer moments, such as on the song “less,” a mournful piano ballad about love not being enough. That combination of vulnerability and confidence comes to characterize the end of the show. After singing “the cure,” during which rain pours down on her and melts away the dress she’s wearing to reveal a different outfit (the biggest technical “wow” moment of the night), she comes back out onstage wearing jeans and pink tank top, hair still wet and face shining. It’s spring again (the flowers are back) and she closes the show with the absolute banger “expectations” – ready to take on the world once again.