{"id":948626,"date":"2026-10-27T22:02:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T22:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/948626\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T22:02:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T22:02:15","slug":"olivia-rodrigo-turned-torontos-scotiabank-arena-into-a-jamboree-of-lovesick-girlhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/948626\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivia Rodrigo turned Toronto\u2019s Scotiabank Arena into a jamboree of lovesick girlhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Olivia Rodrigo performs during the Daisy Chain Fields Festival in Irvine, Calif., on Aug. 29.Monica Schipper\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

It was a good night for Olivias in Toronto. On Monday, Olivia Chow won her bid for re-election, crushing her right-leaning challenger Brad Bradford by more than 13 percentage points. <\/p>\n

But ask any Toronto teen, and they\u2019ll tell you about the far sparklier Olivia who took over the city that evening: Olivia Rodrigo, whose note-perfect performance at Scotiabank Arena was a jamboree of lovesick girlhood. <\/p>\n

Young women arrived at the venue dressed to the nines in pink lace and sequinned hot pants. On more than one occasion, I heard a school-aged girl express excitement over being allowed to swear while singing the words to Rodrigo\u2019s punky love songs. Sugar-sweet sodas flowed plentifully alongside fruity cocktails; high-heeled shoes clogged Scotiabank\u2019s walkways as young feet became sore from waiting in line for T-shirts.<\/p>\n

All to say: Monday\u2019s crowd was overwhelmingly adolescent, female and ready to scream. <\/p>\n

You could say the same of Rodrigo, 23, who took to her flower-covered stage in a frilly babydoll dress, long ribbons flowing from her shoulders as she sang drop dead, the lead single from her recent album You Seem Pretty Sad For a Girl So in Love.<\/p>\n

Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s Daisy Chain Fields festival united all generations around women\u2019s causes<\/a><\/p>\n

Rodrigo\u2019s latest record is structured much like a relationship: Its tracks outline a love story from infatuated roots (\u201cKiss me and I might drop dead,\u201d she croons on the infectious opener) to an inevitably brutal breakup (\u201cWhy\u2019d I try at all?\u201d she later laments on cigarette smoke). <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a neat layout for an album, but one that doesn\u2019t necessarily translate to a large-scale stage show. So, on the Unraveled tour, Rodrigo instead interweaves her newest songs with her back catalogue, arranging the concert into a multirecord kaleidoscope of \u201cseasons.\u201d With each change in the onstage weather comes a nifty visual effect to sell the story, from that eye-catching meadow of pink-and-white wildflowers to a cathartic winter rainstorm (complete with real rain). <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a mature, intentional setlist that allows Rodrigo to show off her full range of songwriting, from the Disney-ish ballads of 2021\u2019s Sour to the far edgier rock anthems of You Seem Pretty Sad For a Girl So in Love, whose influences span The Cure to The Cranberries. <\/p>\n

After drop dead, Rodrigo transitioned into u + me = <3, another plucky serenade to a new lover, and so american, a playful ditty from the deluxe version of the singer\u2019s second album Guts. <\/p>\n

Summer came in a blaze of angry songs about insecurity and the pain of the world writ large, starting with my way, about an interloper in a fragile fling. Rodrigo then turned toward politics with serena joy, a pastiche of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale in which the singer warns obliquely that \u201cif they do it to them, they\u2019re gonna do it to you.\u201d (Cue enthusiastic headbanging.)<\/p>\n

Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s Lilith Fair was sanctuary in turbulent times between Canada and the U.S.<\/a><\/p>\n

By this point in Monday\u2019s concert, the sound level in Scotiabank Arena was approaching the upper extremes of human comfort: My Apple Watch logged a high of 115 decibels during bad idea right?, Rodrigo\u2019s tongue-in-cheek ode to an ill-advised hookup. Things got quieter \u2013 but no less passionate \u2013 during vampire and purple, two introspective songs about the symbiosis that occurs during a mismatched romance.<\/p>\n

Fall then descended in a flurry of red confetti, the floor mostly cleared of its wildflower carpet by agile stagehands. Surrounded by dying flora, Rodrigo ratted off stupid song, maggots for brains and traitor in quick succession, occasionally taking an electric guitar to accompany herself amidst the foliage. <\/p>\n

After a stripped-back version of begged, Rodrigo surprised fans with lacy, a new addition to the setlist, before closing the season with the oh-so-sad cigarette smoke, which saw Rodrigo stretch her voice to the upper echelons of its range, never once faltering on a high note or wail.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the Unraveled tour\u2019s winter set that\u2019s gone the most viral on TikTok, and for good reason \u2013 the act closes with a rainy rendition of the cure, whose water effects completely melted away Rodrigo\u2019s papery white dress to reveal a sparkly red minidress on Monday night. <\/p>\n

The moment, executed on a small B-stage, was as thrilling for her fashion as for her voice, which continued to hold its own against an earsplitting crowd and booming band; she could have ended the concert there and no one would have felt shortchanged.<\/p>\n

Swifties dubbed them the Taydaughters. Now they\u2019re wrestling with Taylor Swift\u2019s double-edged influence<\/a><\/p>\n

But Rodrigo kept going, returning to bright floral imagery for the most screechable songs in her canon: deja vu, all-american bitch and expectations. While Rodrigo\u2019s own vocal health is clearly in fine shape, her Toronto audiences\u2019 might be in trouble after Monday\u2019s gig \u2013 the screaming during all-american bitch, in particular, seemed to shred every vocal cord in the arena. (My own included.)<\/p>\n

Since Rodrigo\u2019s 2022 tour to promote Sour, I\u2019ve had my doubts about the artist\u2019s ability to curate a setlist: Until this year, she barely had enough material to justify playing anything but her albums in full.<\/p>\n

But with the Unraveled tour, Rodrigo has demonstrated a capacity to think deeply about how her music lands outside the studio. New live arrangements of her songs vibrate with intensity and intricate harmonies; clever long-exposure visuals make her grungiest songs look like they sound, as if experienced in a psychedelic trance. <\/p>\n

The Unraveled setlist kills a few darlings \u2013 I was surprised not to hear get him back! or love is embarrassing, two of the centrepiece bops from Rodrigo\u2019s last tour \u2013 but the concert ultimately emerges far greater than the sum of its songs.<\/p>\n

On Monday night, two Olivias demonstrated that they\u2019re blooming anew \u2013 one as a freshly sophisticated artist, one as a mayor at the start of her next term. But more importantly, both Olivias gave Toronto\u2019s youngest women something to look up to: a decisive electoral victory, and a blossomy concert tour worthy of the rock gods who inspired it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Olivia Rodrigo performs during the Daisy Chain Fields Festival in Irvine, Calif., on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":948627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,2922,208,3302],"class_list":["post-948626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-noastack","tag-review","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=948626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/948627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}