Olivia Rodrigo Was Somehow Both a Theater Nerd and a Rock Star in Dallas

When Olivia Rodrigo played the American Airlines Center on Friday, it was only the fifth of the sprawling 77-date Guts World Tour. While relatively early in the real world, five shows into a tour is more than enough time for the internet to develop an opinion on it.

Don’t get us wrong: The tour is being received well by fans and critics alike. But fans, particularly her main demographic in Generation Z, express their love for Rodrigo in a peculiar way.

Her stage presence is often referred to as “theater kid energy.” And the choreography for “Love is Embarrassing” is the subject of roasting from fans who believe Rodrigo has “Disney knees.” Her exaggerated facial expressions and use of a megaphone during “Get Him Back” have been described as “Tori Vega-core.”

(For the uninitiated: “Disney knees” is that thing where a teen starlet poses with their knees turned in to signal that they’re not like other girls. Tori Vega is a fictional singer from the early 2010s Nickelodeon sitcom Victorious who is widely derided by fans of the show. We keep up with Gen Z burns so you don’t have to.)

That’s what playful ribbing from her fans looks like. Haters usually just fall back on words like “cringe.”

Maybe we’re just old, but we think the things that some may view as “cringe” are the very things that made Rodrigo’s show an early contender for our favorite of the year.

She’s a fan of ’90s punk music and musical theater, and both elements find a place in her work. She can shift from exaggerated choreography alongside her chorus of dancers to shredding on St. Vincent’s signature guitar. Her openers for The Guts World Tour include rising art-pop star Chappell Roan (who opened for Rodrigo in Dallas), viral dance-pop act PinkPantheress and ’90s alt-rock band The Breeders.

Every aspect of her music and element in her live show is there simply because she likes it. She has an unabashed earnestness, lack of self-consciousness and, yes, theatricality that make her stand out.

In a pop landscape that’s obsessed with being as universally appealing as possible, she achieves her relatability with hyper-specific confessions. Maybe the substance of a song like “Teenage Dream,” a piano ballad that grapples with fame at a young age, didn’t happen to you. But the feeling behind it comes from a real place and compels you to feel it with her.

At her Dallas show, fans would express their resonance with specific lyrics by screaming along especially loudly when they came up. Lyrics that earned some of the loudest callbacks included the bridge from “Deja Vu”; “Every guy I like is gay,” from “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl”; and “I can’t even parallel park,” from “Brutal.”

(We honestly were with the crowd on that last one. Despite the lyric being written by a teenage girl trying to get her driver’s license, it speaks to a frustration felt by everyone who’s ever operated a car.)

As if the show wasn’t loud enough already, Rodrigo encouraged the audience to let out their loudest scream during “All American Bitch,” resulting in both peak catharsis and permanent damage to everyone’s hearing.

Fans also expressed their devotion to Rodrigo through their fashion. The crowd was a sea of purple outfits, and everyone was channeling their inner Olivia. The crowd looked cute, but we had to wonder how many of those outfits were bought on fast-fashion sites like Shein for just one event. Word to the wise, kids: You do not need a brand new, perfectly on-theme outfit for every single concert you go to. Don’t let social media tell you otherwise.

This passion was reciprocated by Rodrigo, who made concerted efforts to be accessible to fans throughout the show. Her stage split off into two runways, allowing her to engage with the entire general admission crowd. She also spent two of her songs floating above the crowd on a giant crescent moon, which allowed her to see and speak to fans in the balcony. She noticed that one fan was wearing a birthday sash and had the whole arena sing “Happy Birthday” to her.

The most disarming moments of fan interaction involved her running down the barricade, hugging and taking pictures with every fan she could. Unfortunately, this kind of behavior can be unsafe for pop stars, and as Rodrigo’s star rises, innocent and spontaneous moments like this will likely be fewer and farther between.

Like most 21-year-olds, Rodrigo is only just beginning to figure out this whole adulthood thing. Previous generations of stars launched by the Disney Channel felt pressure to pivot from their family-friendly image to a bad girl persona overnight, but Rodrigo is blessed with creative freedom to explore that gray area many young adults fall into. Love, loss, rage and sexuality are some of the themes she touches on during the Guts World Tour with honesty, a sense of humor and a flair for the dramatic

Everyone, even the coolest and most aloof pop stars, was cringe in their early 20s. Rodrigo just has the guts to be real about it.