Olivia Rodrigo: The Guts World Tour

10.05.2024 @ Utilita Arena, Birmingham (15,800 Capacity)

Written May 2024

Fucking amazing as predicted. Guts is easily one of my favourite albums so to see the whole thing live was an absolute dream come true. I’ve been a fan of Olivia since she was on ‘High School Musical: The Musical: The Series’ on Disney plus. ‘All I want’ is still to this day one of my favourite songs of hers and watching her grow so fast over the last 3 years has been so fun. Her progression from being expected to be the next big pop girl into this punk-rock princess is such a brave move that paid off well, she’s slowly helping to bring punk back to wider audiences whilst still remaining such a strong and proficient songwriter. I like to call it glittery punk.

I couldn’t go to see the Sour World Tour in 2022 and even though this tour fell just before my A level exams, we still managed to get tickets - it was the perfect night to let loose before my first exam in the week afterwards. My sister had gotten the tickets (thank youuu ami) and we were right up in block one, in the top corner side-stage, meaning that we were in front and slightly above the wing where Olivia started/performed countless songs, my favourite being “obsessed” & “so american'’. It’s also where she got on the quarter-moon that floated around the arena for “logical” and “enough for you”. 

Olivia is truly a phenomenal performer and her ability to sing so many softer sad songs & high energy pop-rock songs back to back is unreal. It’s what I love about her. Similarly to Emlyn (another of my favourite pop girls at the moment), she’s just as much of a mess and she is a bad bitch and it just shows the incredible duality of a popstar. I cried at “making the bed”. Even at my first listen, it was the song that spoke out the most to me from the whole album and the one I most related to. Watching my videos back, you can definitely tell too. I was also extremely excited to see “obsessed” live and we were right in front/above the side of the stage wing that she performed this song on because there is a camera embedded in it. My jaw didn’t close for the entire song, you can hear in the videos that I hardly even sing along because I’m so in awe and focused on Olivia.

Her entire band was a spectacle to watch too. Something I love about Olivia is that her band is made up of women and non-binary musicians, which is amazing in the pop-rock landscape she’s shaping for herself. They were all skilled musicians in their own right and they were all hot too, so it wasn’t a bad view. If you weren't getting gay panic from Olivia (which is impossible, I checked), you definitely were from her band. After the show we made our way to the lower bowl to get a picture and ended up saying hi to a team member who was walking past, and just told them we really appreciate what they do, from a prospective technician/live event professional to a real one, and he seemed to like the compliment.

It’s been fascinating to watch Olivia grow as an artist in such a short time frame, she’s such an amazing performer. It can only go up from here and I can’t wait to watch.