Olivia Rodrigo, at the Precipice of Rock and Pop Stardom

Olivia Rodrigo at Moody Center on Feb. 28 (Photo by David Brendan Hall)

Beginning with hair flips and Dr. Martens kicks, Olivia Rodrigo’s Wednesday stop in Austin constructed a rock-and-pop sandwich.

Bookended by guitar-fueled, rapid-fire, shout-along choruses that made the Moody Center floor shake, the performance caught the singer staring down the barrel of her debut arena tour, on the precipice. While still centering her arsenal of emotional ballads akin to her breakout “Drivers License,” flashes of rowdiness made the biggest impact.

The fourth stop of the GUTS tour – after previous Austin shows at Waterloo Park and the Moody Theater, for an Austin City Limits taping – felt absolutely full of potential. On turning 21 the week prior, and in one of the few revealing comments of the evening, the Grammy-winning singer joked: “I obviously had my first sip of alcohol in my whole life.” Otherwise, rather than spilling her guts in intros, she let her in-song breakup takedowns do the talking.

Photo by David Brendan Hall

On the high of “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl,” she threw it to the crowd for “every guy I like is gay.” Next, seated at the piano for the dusky “Vampire,” Rodrigo let the lilac-wearing hordes take another relationship thorn: “‘cause girls your age know better.” Women far outnumbered men in the sea of plaid, pleather, and purple cowboy hats with flashing lights.

When a bundle of modern dancers emerged for “Traitor,” off her Grammy-winning 2021 album Sour, the star acted as their semi-stoic leader, partaking in minimal choreography herself beyond sways and stomps. The quick side eyes and calm control, even among sonic snarl, reminded me a bit of seeing rock-and-pop retrofuturist St. Vincent’s late 2010s tours. Project principal Annie Clark, who has emerged as a mentor of Rodrigo, last year told the New York Times, “I’ve never met anyone so young and so effortlessly self-possessed.”

Photo by David Brendan Hall

That assuredness, and awareness, weaved in the show’s tight presentation of adult-ish themes, strutting around the seams of the songwriter’s origins on Disney TV shows. Opener Chappell Roan, who shares a producer with Rodrigo in Dan Nigro, pushed the contrast with her drag-inspired embrace of campy, explicitly queer pop. Rodrigo’s own toe-dipping played out in quick mood switches: She went from remarking sunnily on how much she loves going to concerts with her mom to sliding rock-heroically down the back of her bassist to start “Jealousy.”

She’d later kneel in a circle of guitarists – from her all-women and nonbinary band – after playing Clark’s signature Ernie Ball guitar herself during GUTS bonus track “Obsessed.” Making a centerpiece of the vinyl-only release, which Rodrigo and Clark co-wrote, she thrashed against a clear floor panel during the song. The big screen camera filmed her from below for the evening’s most striking, and mature, visual.

The unreleased song’s more sinister production and steely vocal delivery points to a promising pathway (maybe just dashed with Air’s 1998 “Sexy Boy,” heard in the pre-show playlist).

Photo by David Brendan Hall

Another sequence captured the singer from above while dancers fanned out from her circular platform, in one of a few Busby Berkeley-esque choreo moments (think the gutterballs scene from The Big Lebowski). Moving past the scrapbook-ed, sparkly sticker, riot grrrl-nodding aesthetic that potentially won over many millennial listeners like myself, more black-and-white 20th century images emerged. The screen showed women in swimsuits at vintage beauty pageants, and Rodrigo floated around seated on a crescent moon, from which she serenaded the venue.

Still, she reemerged for the finale in a tank top reading BRAT, perfect accompaniment to the serotonin blast of pop-punk pettiness in “Good 4 U.” (Previous tour tanks have read “I’m Just a Girl” and “Fantasy.”) An hour-and-a-half of contrasting guitar punches and sugary balladry held steady under Rodrigo’s powerfully expressive voice, songwriting chops proven across format. Case in point: the double-meaning twist of “Get Him Back!” – for which she brought out a megaphone encasing a mic.

In the bright-red, literal display of making your feelings heard, my favorite detail was where she impolitely stuck her unused mic: in the waistband of her sequined hot pants.

Olivia Rodrigo (Photo by David Brendan Hall)

Opener Chappell Roan (Photo by David Brendan Hall)

Correction, Feb. 29, 1:36pm: An earlier version of this story referred to the guitar as "the only time Rodrigo played an instrument onstage," disregarding that the piano is, clearly, an instrument.