Olivia Rodrigo Is the Actual Rock Star We’ve Needed in a Galvanizing ‘Guts Tour’ Opening: Concert Review

variety.com:

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “I don’t know if you guys know this, but I just turned 21,” Olivia Rodrigo told her audience during the opening show of her 2024 tour Friday night. (They knew.) “I’m really fucking excited about it — big birthday.

I went to the gas station the other day and I bought a pack of cigarettes and a case of beer. I promise I didn’t consume it, but I bought it just ‘cause I fucking could.” There was no mention of whether the attendant making the sale did any kind of double-take after carding her and getting a gander of the most famous driver’s license in the history of pop culture.

Rodrigo was telling the story about her venture into the realm of AM/PM impulse purchases by way of introducing “Teenage Dream,” a song she wrote when she was 19 and, from the sound of the lyrics, wondering whether she might have already passed her prime (This is the sort of question that probably comes up more among child stars than the general population of adolescents.) But, she informed the crowd at Palm Springs’ Acrisure Arena, she was no longer dogged by these feelings, two years further on. “I think growing up isn’t so scary after all, and life just kind of gets better.” We’ll all shotgun a beer to that… or mime it, anyway.

Rodrigo has had a lot of reason since she wrote that troubled song to turn into a cockeyed optimist: “Drivers License” brought her as close to literally overnight sensationalism as is possible in pop.