Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS tour is coming to an end. After her “SOUR” album blew up in May of 2021, the world was stuck wondering when her next album would be released. The wondering came to an end in September of 2023 when she released her album “GUTS.” This album instantly became popular with over 60 million streams on the first day it came out and her songs “vampire” and “bad idea right?” being released as singles put everyone on edge waiting for the album to come. Not long after her album was released she announced her world tour which started on February 23, 2024. Her tour included her whole “GUTS” album along with a few songs from her first album, “SOUR.”
On March 9, only one month into her tour while performing in Nashville, Rodrigo had her first guest on stage. Sheryl Crow joined her to sing “If It Makes You Happy.” Not long after, on March 22 at the United Center in Chicago, Rodrigo announced “GUTS (spilled),” which was an additional 5 songs, the most popular being “obsessed” and “so american,” which was inspired by her new relationship with British actor Louis Partridge.
Continuing with her surprises, on April 5 while performing at Madison Square Garden in NYC, Noah Kahan appeared on stage to perform his hit song “Stick Season” alongside Rodrigo after the song had gone viral on TikTok from her releasing a cover she had done of it. Then, on August 20 while performing in her home city of LA, she brought on friend and newly found popstar Chappell Roan to perform the song that is taking over the internet: “HOT TO GO!”
How has the GUTS Tour been different from the SOUR Tour? Of course many remember when the “SOUR” album came out, right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic when everyone seemed to relate to what she was singing about. So why was the SOUR tour so much smaller than that of GUTS? The pandemic was a factor, but Rodrigo was also a much smaller artist in 2022. She had a few singles like “All I Want” and other songs from her time on “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” but when her first album was released most people only knew her from her acting career. Her tour took place with 33 shows in North America and 16 in Europe with a total of 49 shows, only half of the amount of shows the GUTS tour had. This year Rodrigo was able to sell out stadiums like The Chase Center in San Francisco and the Kia Forum in Los Angeles. She also had huge fan trends going on at her concerts. She took inspiration from Beyonce’s mute challenge by creating one of her own during the “i know i should stop … but i can’t” part of her song, “bad idea right?” These fan interactions plus showing videos of her as a kid during her song “teenage dream” are what is making her blow up.
As this tour comes to an end, many are looking back on their fond memories of the concert and excitedly awaiting her next album.
