How Olivia Rodrigo turned the Phoenix stop of her 'Sour' tour into a joyous singalong

Olivia Rodrigo brought her first headlining tour to Arizona Federal Theatre with one hit album to her name — a triple-platinum breakthrough titled "Sour" that became the first debut in history to send two singles to the top of Billboard's Hot 100.

And the 19-year-old superstar seemed every bit as overjoyed to be there as the fans who sang along to every word as though their lives depended on it.

Every so often, a tour hits your city at just the right moment to capture the joy and excitement of a young performer's first real taste of what it truly means to have that kind of impact on an audience.  And that's exactly where Rodrigo was on Tuesday night in Phoenix.

She's Grammy's pick for Best New Artist, Billboard's Woman of the Year and the voice behind the most-streamed album worldwide on Spotify for 2021.

This is her moment and she's clearly loving every minute of it.

You could see it in the way she smiled as the theatre filled with the sound of a choir of several thousand emoting "'Cause you said 'forever,' now I drive alone past your street."

The joy she brought to that performance was beyond contagious, as were the covers that not only padded the set of a one-album artist but honored two women who clearly played a role in shaping the type of music Rodrigo has grown up to make — Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne.

Olivia Rodrigo and her band built tension from the opening notes

After setting the tone for the show with a playfully chosen recording of the One Direction song “Olivia,” Rodrigo and her bandmates tore into the opening riff of “Brutal,” an electrifying variation on Elvis Costello's garage-punk classic "Pump It Up," from behind the curtain, stopping on a dime at the end of one quick passage through the riff.

It was the first of several tension-building false starts until finally, the curtains parted to shrieks of approval, revealing the band as they began the song in earnest, the audience shouting along at full intensity long before Rodrigo turned it over to them for "It's brutal out here."

It's the opening track on "Sour," and before the set was through, she'd made her way through all 11 songs, from the rock 'n' roll swagger of "Jealousy, Jealousy" to solo acoustic renditions of "Enough For You" and "1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back."

She's a commanding presence with the vocal range to pull off a variety of moods, whether sneering her way through the near-rhyming brilliance of "And I'm not cool and I'm not smart/ And I can't even parallel park" in "Brutal" or underscoring the vulnerability at the broken heart of "Drivers License" or "Enough for You."

She also dusted off a heartfelt "All I Want," a song she wrote for Disney's "High School Musical: The Musical: The Series," saying "I don't think I'd be here tonight if it wasn't for this song."

"High School Musical: The Musical: The Series" is Rodrigo's second Disney series, following "Bizaardvark," which followed her acting debut, at 12, in an American Girl doll movie.

Fans of her Disney work weren't disappointed

If you went in looking for the Disney in her show at Arizona Federal Theatre, you may have found some moments you could point to as connections to that side of who she is.

But her music is actually closer in spirit to the attitude-driven alternative rock of the '90s and early 2000s, from "Brutal," which felt like Veruca Salt channeling Elvis Costello, to those covers that spoke volumes at high volumes — "Complicated" by Lavigne and "Just a Girl" by No Doubt.

She also apparently covered Veruca Salt's "Seether" at earlier stops on the tour, so that checks out.

And yet, none of that matters as much the way she's been able to speak to the human condition with an authenticity that resonates, from "Drivers License," a song she said she wrote about "this really gnarly heartbreak," to "Enough For You," a song about "feeling like I wasn't pretty enough or interesting enough or smart enough."

You'd be hard pressed to come up with a hook as undeniable as "Drivers License." But the reason the audience threatened to drown out her vocals in those moments is because that's just how deeply they were feeling it.

As Rodrigo herself said while sharing the story of playing "Drivers License" for a friend who didn't understand her pain until she heard the song, "I think that's one of the most beautiful things about music, is sometimes it can capture how we feel better than words ever could."

Holly Humberstone was a perfect opener

Holly Humberstone earned an enthusiastic response to an opening set that began with her building a backing track of harmonies for “Vanilla” with looping technology.

She fleshed out other songs with piped-in instruments and harmonies as she accompanied herself on keyboards or guitar in a solo performance whose highlights paired well with the vulnerable side of Rodrigo’s set. She went from the whisper-singing “Please Don’t Leave Just Yet” to “Deep End,” a song she said she’d written for her little sister, who’d gone through “something kind of rubbish.”

The 22-year-old, who earned a Brit Award for Rising Star in February, established an easy rapport with the crowd in a series of lengthy introductions that felt more like someone explaining the songs to her friends at a party than actual banter.

In setting up “London is Lonely,” she talked about how “places full of people can be really isolating,” which painted a vivid a picture of the situation as the song itself.

“I don’t know if you can tell,” she said, “but I’m a really awkward person.”

That’s not awkward. That’s just real. And that’s what made her whole performance that much more engaging.

Olivia Rodrigo setlist

• "Brutal"

• "Jealousy, Jealousy"

• "Drivers License"

• "Complicated" (Avril Lavigne cover)

• "Hope Ur OK"

• "Enough For You"

• "1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back"

• "Happier"

• "All I Want"

• "Just a Girl" (No Doubt cover)

• "Favorite Crime"

• "Traitor"

• "Deja Vu"

• "Good 4 U"

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Olivia Rodrigo concert review: 'Sour' tour comes to Phoenix