Live Report: Chappell Roan's Midwest fairytale comes to life at Dublin's 3Olympia

Fans started lining up around 3Olympia Theatre well before 7am.

Queer pop sensation, and indeed cultural supernova, Chappell Roan wouldn’t take the stage for another 14 hours, but it didn’t matter. By the time the doors opened for her sold-out concert on Tuesday evening, hordes of people in hot-pink leotards and pearl-studded wigs wrapped around the block at least twice.

Chappell Roan fans gather at 3Olympia Theatre. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

A man on an electric bike flying down Dame Street abruptly pulled over to enquire about the sea of garishly dressed teens and twenty-somethings. “What are you waiting for?” he asked.

“Chappell Roan. Ch-ap-pell, like a church,” a woman replied with her hands folded together in prayer. “She’s our Mother. We’re going to worship.”

Chappell Roan fans gather at 3Olympia Theatre. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

At the church of Chappell Roan, tonight devotees dressed in rhinestone cowboy boots, sequin bodysuits and full face-paint. And saying prayers just meant screaming the song-lyrics as loud as your lungs will allow, tomorrow’s inevitable hoarseness be damned! Not a bad welcome for Roan’s first ever concert in Dublin.

If you’re on social media or follow pop culture in almost any capacity, chances are you’ve engaged with the Midwestern Princess in some form: be it her crowds ballooning larger with each day or her ever-growing horde of fans, including self-professed super-fan Elton John or Jenna Ortega, who spent her night off from filming the Wednesday series with her cast members at 3Olympia.

It’s not surprising, really, to see just how much she’s risen. Roan’s potent mix of gay pop, emo-driven hard rock, drag aesthetics and infectious singalong choruses is practically begging for viral escalation.

Tonight’s gig had such a build-up, such a sense of anticipation, that even its supporting act boasted an incomparable amount of hype. Who could it be? Across her blockbuster Midwest Princess tour, Roan has led an entire drag queen pageant in every city the tour visits, with Google Form applications for local queen hopefuls. Tonight, it’s the legendary Haus of Wig trio – Shaqira Knightly, Donna Fella, Naomi Diamond. The trio have already made a name for themselves around town, with their consistently sold-out residency at the Sugar Club each month. 3Olympia is already packed to the back when they take to the stage, earning the kind of enthusiastic cheers that would charm headliners.

It’s likely that, by this time next year, Chappell Roan’s crowds will be so big that the ordinary fan will barely get even a slight glimpse of the star. That’s why this show was so important, and so good. At 3Olympia, sold out at its capacity of 1,200, the singer felt accessible, immediate, talking to us like we were old friends.

Roan's artistry is indisputable, and her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, is a self-assured pop masterwork. In concert, the songs ascend to even higher heights with ‘My Kink is Karma', ‘Red Wine Supernova’ and ‘California’ inspiring the crowd into a delicate fervour. Despite the pop sheen of her music, make no mistake: Chappell Roan in concert absolutely rocks.

A good deal of credit should go to her band, who elevate the material and catapult it to stratospheric heights with their all-muscle renditions. The rhythm section, bassist Valeria Falcon and drummer Lucy Ritter, make ‘Hot To Go’ flourish, with the backbeat driving the audience response, while guitarist Eliza Petrosyan adds spellbinding nuances like the wailing riffage at the start of ‘Femininomenon’ and the arena-rock theatrics of ‘Pink Pony Club’ that close the show.

Roan’s 70-minute set covered the bulk of her debut album, with theatrical pop songs about soured relationships, yearning for better times and chasing after pipe-dreams. Ballads like ‘Coffee’ and 'Casual’ had fans reliving the frustration of their last situationship, set to a treacle-saturated soundtrack. Then Roan turned 3Olympia into a half-time pep rally, leading a synchronised dance and chant for the chorus of “HOT TO GO!”.

She has a distinct sense of self and identity, which is precisely why she is currently striking such a chord. She may arrive onstage in make-up and flashy outfits, a look influenced by drag queens, but the artist we all know as Chappell Roan is painting portraits of romance gone awry, unattainable love and coming to terms with your sexuality. Dissolve the music and the image, and what remains is her abiding lyrical specificity, which embraces queerness and lesbian romance, an essential element of her artistry.

Observing the emotion, the tears, the belted-out lyrics, indeed the feeling of community, what becomes clear is that Chappell Roan is more than a singer or an artist. She’s a haven for people just like her, struggling with their own identity and desperately seeking a space in which they can feel accepted and comforted.

Taking a breather from the high-octane, no filler setlist, Chappell remarked on her indelible rise to stardom and how she found community in sweaty, stuffy concert halls around the world. “I’m so grateful for this part of the job. It feels like why I do it,” she remarked, cooling herself with a bright-pink folding fan, emblazoned with “SHANIA!”, a fitting homage. “I really needed this type of community when I was fifteen, I so desperately needed it.”

As the closer ‘Pink Pony Club’ says: we are here to find a place to call home and cherish it. The timetable for this path to queer nirvana differs from person to person. We uncover ourselves in the extremes, arms stretched to the sky. The only thing we can do is keep on dancing until we find it.