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When Chappell Roan kicked off her tour in September last year, she did so in front of 600 people at the Goldfield Trading Post honky tonk in Roseville, California, with a wall of pink streamers for decoration. Three days ago, she performed at the VMAs in front of a castle on fire, dressed like a Gen Z Joan of Arc in glittering chainmail and flanked by a cavalry of dancers. Hours later, she took home the prize for Best New Artist.
In the last year, Roan has celebrated her 26th birthday, scored a UK No 1 with “Good Luck, Babe!” – her disco-pop kiss-off with a sapphic bent – and drew record-breaking crowds at Lollapalooza festival. In other words, Roan blew up. And then some.
This brings us to tonight in Manchester, where the pop upstart embarks on the UK stretch of her tour in the odd position of a star whose warp-speed ascent was unforeseen and unplanned – hence why she’s playing a venue with a capacity of fewer than 3,000. Not that you’d know it from the sound of them, screaming as Roan appears on stage, her signature red curls loose around her shoulders, looking like a pre-Raphaelite fever dream in a diamond-encrusted leotard.
She squeals right into fifth gear with “Femininomenon”, a ballad that hangs a sharp left into a pounding pop-house pulse at the singer’s bratty behest: “Dude, can you play a song with a f***ing beat?” The crowd sounds off in agreement and the beats flow henceforth. Likewise, the moves, as Roan strides back and forth across the stage like a Rockette five Red Bulls deep.
Like the album it’s named for, the Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess tour is a maximalist undertaking, bringing to life Roan’s penchant for theatrics and reverence of drag culture. (Tonight’s show, like every other, is opened by local queens). That said, the staging is simple: there are no visuals, only lights and a wind machine working overtime.
Choreography is also minimal. On the yearning love song “Picture You”, Roan serenades a blonde wig on a mic stand with an am-dram sincerity. It has the scrappy energy of a much smaller act, totally endearing because it is so incongruous to her level of fame.
Roan appears to still be catching up on it herself. Announcing the show, she briefly forgets the name of her own album and bursts out into laughter. There isn’t much in the way of a fireside chat (the set is just over an hour long) but she does make time for a small revelation. “In my hometown, they’d call gay people clowns,” she says to a chorus of boos. “I don’t say this a lot, but that’s why I wear my white face [make-up] – I’ll show you a clown!”
There is an element of musical theatre in Roan’s vocals, too – in her speak-singing and ad-libs, those over-the-top trills and Kate Bush-inspired yodels. The monologue to “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl” is immensely fun live, the house track transformed into a kinetic call-and-response number with pummelling drums. Roan’s belts, criminally under-mixed in the studio version of “Naked in Manhattan”, ring out loud and clear. Later with “Good Luck, Babe!”, she channels Stevie Nicks with a gravelly vibrato.
There are few joys as pure as miming the letters “H-O-T T-O G-O” in unison with hundreds of strangers. For one night only, Roan changes the UK’s national language to semaphore, and everyone obliges; it’s “YMCA” for the TikTok generation. Her fans are nothing if not devout, as evidenced by their outfits tonight paying homage to Roan’s off-the-leash creativity.
For slow songs, such as “Coffee” and the unreleased “The Subway”, Roan assumes an almost pious posture by the mic, sometimes placing a hand on her heart as though reciting a pledge of allegiance – which in a way, she is. The setlist soars with self-belief so that even the forlorn-sounding songs take flight when performed live.
Take “Casual”. Roan’s wry ballad about the indignities of a situationship becomes a hair-flipping head-banger. It lands with an emotional wallop – hit home by a two-song encore of “California” and the 2020 cabaret-pop queer anthem that started it all: “Pink Pony Club”.
Tonight feels like a snapshot of Roan’s pre-fame psyche before the Grammys and stadium shows that will likely follow. Less than a year old, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess already feels nostalgic, performed here tonight on the smallest stage she’ll probably ever play, on the cusp of it all with everything on the horizon.
