PC: Spotify
Roughly four years of grinding in entertainment media and 5,000 Olivia Rodrigo articles later, I found myself at the pop superstar’s invite-only Spotify Billions club show at the Teatre Grec amphitheater in Barcelona. Please take a moment to absorb that insane flex.
Thank you. (Keep making pop stars your whole personality, folks. One random Friday morning, you just might receive a life-altering email with the subject line: [CONFIDENTIAL] Spotify News x Press Trip.) Needless to say, I blended right in with the top influencers and screaming Spanish teens in attendance. My Spanish is basically flawless and my IG follower count is really through the roof.
Kidding, kidding. I assume I was on Spotify’s radar because of my bylines in People and Betches, but “Olivia Rodrigo Stan” remains the most important title on my resumé. Frankly, Harvard should hire me to teach a course on the pop queen. I’ve attended the SOUR tour, the GUTS tour, her Rock & Roll Hall of Fame concert, her Gov Ball set, and now, her Billions Club concert. And I don’t have tickets to the Unraveled Tour yet, but you can rest assured I will be there, even if I have to sell a limb or two. I’ll also just stress that I’m personally responsible for “drop dead” debuting at No. 1, and I had the “begged” lyrics memorized 30ish minutes after her Saturday Night Live performance.
Anyways. It’s been an honor and a privilege to follow the once-in-a-generation singer-songwriter’s career up close, and I walked away from this incredibly special show with several pressing insights to share.
(Thank you so much, Spotify Newsletter. This experience made my life.)
Without further ado, here’s a glimpse into my mind as I floated out of Teatre Grec in a dreamy Aperol Spritz and Olivia haze.
GUTS is criminally under-appreciated
SOUR is that girl, I get it. I’ve probably done permanent damage to my vocal cords screaming the lyrics to “deja vu” and “brutal” at all of Olivia’s shows. Her debut is pop culture history, period. But can we, as a society, hold more space for GUTS?
At this event, I learned that “vampire” is currently the only GUTS track with over a billion streams, and I find that offensive. Why aren’t “ballad of a homeschooled girl,” “lacy,” “all-american bitch,” and “love is embarrassing” getting the adoration they deserve? It’s baffling to me that “get him back” didn’t have the same chart dominance as “good 4 u.” Olivia and her producer, Dan Nigro, could not have cooked up a more clever, polished pop-rock banger.
The Barcelona Livies were going just as hard — if not harder — for GUTS tracks, and I would like to see the rest of the world follow suit.
Top listeners should be rewarded more
PC: Spotify
Thank you, Spotify, for rewarding the most dedicated Livies and showing us what a top fan-ocracy looks like. I can now confirm it looks like… heaven. There were no bored boyfriends, no stressed out parents, no random non-fans tagging along for the vibes. Nope, every individual in that tiny crowd (aside from a few Spotify and media folks) was an Olivia stan, and they made that very fucking clear.
At times, you could barely hear Olivia’s voice because the fans were so beautifully loud. They came armed with gifts (I spotted a gorgeous you seem pretty sad-themed flower bouquet and an adorable Olivia doll), and they didn’t take one second for granted. These kids were performing in the crowd like they were the ones on stage.
Not only is this system more fair, but shows are infinitely more fun when the audience is legit fans. Can we please use listener data to determine presale access Ticketmaster? Just throwing my dream out into the universe.
People need to get off their phones and dance at concerts more
In 2026, we’re either watching concerts through our own phones or through someone else’s. While I don’t particularly wish I were a millennial, I am deeply jealous of people who got to experience live music before the iPhone came to be. Imagine a communal, cathartic, living-in-the-moment experience, instead of a competition to capture the most iconic IG Story or the most viral TikTok.
That said, shoutout to the Spanish teens who understood the assignment and were not at all glued to their phones. There was lots of synchronized jumping and full-body sobbing happening. And despite English being their second language, these legends screamed every single lyric. The chills I got that night were from Olivia and the crowd.
Whatever the genre of the new album is, Olivia is a rock star at heart
PC: Spotify
We only have a taste of the new album so far, but “drop dead” is a dreamy synth-pop crush anthem, and “begged” is a more mature evolution of SOUR era ballads like “traitor.” If those tracks are any indication of what’s to come, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love might lean more soft pop and acoustic than angsty rock.
But as I watched Olivia perform 20 feet away from me at the Billions Club Show, it was more obvious than ever that this girl is a rock star. You can see it in the way she lights up during the intros of “bad idea right?” and “ballad of a homeschooled girl.” You can see it in her signature high kick (pictured above lol). You can see it in her head banging and how she playfully mirrors her guitarist.
Manifesting we get at least a few Rock-livia songs on album #3.
Olivia’s at the top of her game right now
There’s no victory lap quite like a Billions Club show. Olivia moved across that stage with the swagger of someone who has not one, not two, but nine songs with over a billion streams. Her vocals are more crisp and angelic than ever. She’s at ease and at home up there, worlds away from the slightly anxious, fresh-off-a-Disney-show teen the world first met. (Thank you for your service, GUTS tour.) The 23-year-old is blossoming into one of the strongest live performers of her generation, and she knows it.
If you got Unraveled Tour tickets, I’m so happy for you. And can you give them to me? JK. Unless…
(BONUS) We need more intimate concerts in European amphitheaters
I’m just saying.
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.