Last night Olivia Rodrigo opened her Unraveled Tour in Hartford, Connecticut, and she made the argument that she has improved since her last run of shows. The concert stretched close to two hours, began precisely at 8 p.m., and raced through 23 songs without stopping for an encore or letting any part grow tiresome. She performed nearly every track from her new album You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, alongside songs from her three earlier records.
The night was a total triumph. Rodrigo held the stage with a fury and a warmth that felt personal, and she proved that being unraveled doesn’t mean she’s beaten. She’s unvanquished, and she showed it.
The Flower Roadies and the Opening Night Energy
Throughout the entire night, she exuded a Fuck It, Whatever attitude. Flowers blanketed the stage — an enormous quantity of them. My estimate puts the number of gardeners at 16, and they kept moving between songs to collect or arrange the plants, or to add more. No one has ever seen so much greenery on a stage before.
Guess Olivia really does have a favorite florist?
Rodrigo began concealed among the flowers, delivering the opening verse of “Drop Dead.”. The band dragged out the intro for what seemed like ages, until she emerged from deep within the garden, rising up like a May Queen. Purple confetti then fell as the guitars erupted into sound, and she moved energetically through her performance in a white dress with an empire silhouette, evoking the feel of Pride and Prejudice — though with a sixth Bennet sister who spent her time in pubs and knew all the words to “Just Like Heaven.”.
Olivia could have ended her performance after “Drop Dead”, and the show would still have been fantastic. Instead, she kept going.
From Grunge Headbanger to Pastoral Mood
A year after her summer-2025 festival run, the Unraveled Tour is a far cry from the bold glam-punk energy of those shows. She has not played the grunge headbanger “Obsessed” at all since then, and it opened every night of that run — a song she has left untouched since then. At those shows, she ruled the stage with an almost otherworldly sense of rock confidence.
She’s in different territory emotionally these days, going for a pastoral mood. After Wolf Alice’s high-energy opening set, her pre-show soundtrack was a loop of chirping insects and birds.
The difference is clear. Twelve months ago, Rodrigo moved through the world wrapped in leather and chains. Tonight, she moved through it wearing a white dress, flowers around her.
The Killer Songs That Made the Setlist Work
Rodrigo slammed right into two of the greatest (and rockingest) love songs she’s ever written, “U + Me = <3” and “So American.” “U + Me” was lifted high by the crowd screaming the key lines, maybe her all-time killer couplet if not her entire philosophy of life: “They say modern love’s a cruel endeavor/And to that I say fuck it, whatever!” The video screen helpfully displayed the lyrics, but nobody needed a prompt.
The woman ran toward the piano to perform a solo, and during the performance she raised her dress so the audience could see her underwear, which bore a pro-Hartford slogan: “HFD + me 4ever.” (Note: There is no known evidence of anyone ever feeling this way about Hartford in real life.)
The setlist included “So American”, a track that felt like a guaranteed non-inclusion given its clear place in the pre-You Seem Pretty Sad period. It worked brilliantly to raise the emotional stakes instead. The three-song stretch of romantic content ran into trouble with the pop-punk anger of “Good 4 U”. That disruption prompted a costume change while the band held down the “Deja Vu” intro and the flower roadies tended to the garden.
“Sorry, Maddie, for keeping you up.”
Six Sections, Four Seasons, and the Band That Anchored It All
Six distinct parts make up the performance, roughly organized by the four seasons. Her all-female backing group, led by guitarists Daisy Spencer (introduced as “the coolest girl in the world”) and Arianna Powell, helped keep the energy up throughout. There wasn’t much talk from the stage, particularly during the first half, when she barely spoke at all between songs — a record low for her live shows.
She dressed across the spectrum, from princess dresses to Nineties street style. The indie-sleaze energy of “My Way” gave way to the amazing new “Serena Joy,” a righteous feminist attack with an early-Eighties new wave sound, very Martha and the Muffins. “Purple” opened with Olivia curled up into a ball on the floor, by the lip of the stage, before she was jumping around waving a sparkler by the end.
Avoiding the Album’s Storyline Live
The album You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love leans heavily on a story-driven structure, something that some listeners will appreciate and others will not. During the live performance, however, she makes sure to alternate between love songs and songs about endings rather than sticking to the album’s sequence. “Cigarette Smoke” appears before “Honeybee,” which is a bold choice given that it runs counter to the album’s apology theme.
She didn’t say anything about the album’s much-discussed premise, staying away from any comments that might seem conceptual or thematic. The one new song that got an introduction was “Begged,” which she prefaced with a sweet story about writing it “in a hotel room in a foreign country at 4 a.m.,” while her best friend Madison Hu was trying to sleep. (She apologized to Hu, who was in the audience, saying, “Sorry, Maddie, for keeping you up.”)
A Birthday Tribute and the Crowd’s Own Sing-Alongs
“This is a special night, because it’s opening night,” she said at her piano. “But also because it’s my mom’s birthday.” Since her mom was there in the house, she had everyone sing “Happy Birthday,” but quipped, “I can’t put her on camera — she’d kill me!”
“Bad Idea Right?” and “Vampire” were highlights, with Rodrigo reprising her iconic Guts-era stage crawl during Powell’s guitar solo in the former. For “Stupid Song,” she moved to a heart-shaped side stage (with a ring of flowers, of course).
“Maggots for Brains,” one of the weirdest, saddest, and best moments on the new album, killed, with Olivia playing the Cure-style guitar solo. (Robert Smith did not show up tonight, and sadly, neither did “What’s Wrong With Me,” the only omission from You Seem Pretty Sad).
The Verdict on a Near-Perfect Night
Rodrigo’s Hartford opener was a near-perfect night. She crammed nearly two hours with 23 songs, bounced between love and heartbreak, and kept the crowd constantly on edge. The flower roadies added to the spectacle, the band stayed tight, and she came through on every promise the setlist had made.
The only complaint is that she didn’t do “What’s Wrong With Me.” But that’s a small price to pay for a show this alive.
She’s the most alive she’s ever been, and the crowd knew it.
Source material: “Olivia Rodrigo Heals Wounds and Draws Blood in Triumphant Unraveled Tour Opener,” Rolling Stone.
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