Olivia Rodrigo fans know all about this, either explicitly or intuitively, probably because Rodrigo’s sharpest pop songs feel mutually instinctive and self-aware, visceral and alert, and when she sang them on the latest stop of her “Guts” tour at Capital One Arena in Washington on Saturday, thousands of voices knew exactly how to join in. It wasn’t a singalong so much as a shout-behind, which felt almost shocking during the show’s more delicate moments — “Traitor,” “Making the Bed,” “Favorite Crime” — with Rodrigo’s voice melting into a syrupy pout while her devout Greek chorus amplified whatever emotional pain their hero had chosen to steep in. Over and over, Rodrigo seemed to be smothering a blaring hurt inside her head, transposing it into mumbly melody. If you wanted to sing along in real life, you had to voice the blare.
The entire show toggled between those wounded ballads and much punkier punches — and without whiplash. She was a natural in both modes, drawing on an anger that felt sincere, then sincerely blowing it off, skipping across the stage in sequins and combat boots, occasionally widening her eyes before a big refrain, as if she’d just spotted an apocalyptic meteor falling out of the sky. At 21, Rodrigo contains multitudes, and she isn’t shy about her politics. She gave a shout-out to the Baltimore Abortion Fund, having invited the organization to set up an info table on the arena concourse, and when it came time to funnel her feminism directly into song, she delivered “All-American Bitch,” a dynamite stick concealed in a bubble gum wrapper that rejects the roles young women are expected to play in this patriarchal, fascism-curious country we all share. “All the time, I’m grateful all the time,” Rodrigo sang, her voice turned sticky with mock-sweetness. “I’m sexy and I’m kind, I’m pretty when I cry.”
Somehow, that moment paled in comparison to another lyric from the song — “I scream inside to deal with it” — being turned inside out. During a breakdown, Rodrigo issued instructions to everyone in the room: Think about something that makes you angry, and then, when the lights go down, scream it out. After a four count, her band went silent, the room went black, and the air filled with something deafening and mysterious.
Please understand that this was not a festive Saturday night huzzah, or a big roller coaster whoop, or an intensified horror movie multiplex shriek, or even the wailing veneration of an entirely worthy pop star. This was an omni-scream with its own timbre, totally beautiful and half-terrifying. It came from a crowd that skewed young, but spanned generations, which means it contained contempt for school bus bullies, and national election agita, and countless fears over the future of our species, plus every variant of private hurt otherwise sealed inside the hearts of the assembled. It was hard to remember — or even imagine — a sound more cleansing, more total, more real.
