- Opinion
- 16 Feb 19
Boundless energy and guts from rising star as she grooves through first night of world tour
The next time Maggie Rogers plays Ireland, it’s unlikely she’ll be performing at a venue as intimate as The Academy. The 24-year-old singer started the show with a bang entering the stage to ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’. She then kicked into a thundering version of 'Give A Little' - a song written the day students walked out of schools across America demanding congressional action on gun control.
Donning black and white chequered trousers, a simple white vest, and red boots, Rogers declares: “This is the first show I’ve played with my album out in the world and it feels fucking awesome.”
The NYU graduate then goes on to perform Heard It In A Past Life – already a sizeable international hit – in its entirety. “People change overnight / Things get strange, but I’m alright” she sings with a breathy vocal on ‘Overnight’, before belting out her breakthrough number, ‘Alaska’.
It’s the opening night of a world tour that will see the Maryland native roll through Europe, North America and Australia in the coming months.
On Thursday, there was rarely a moment Rogers stood still meaning she lost her microphone transmitter several times before an aid taped it to her back.
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“I’m dancing so hard that my pack so I can hear keeps failing out of my pants. We are just going to tape it. I hope everybody tonight else dances out of their pants tonight.”
To mark Valentine’s Day, the stage is decked out in heart-shaped balloons. “I hope all of you have great sex after this, I really do,” says Rogers. “If you’re going home to cry, or if you’re going home to fuck, this is a great song for both.” With that, she launches into a stripped back version of Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’.
Meanwhile, before the final track of the evening, ‘Fallingwater’, Rogers hits a disarmingly tender note. “This song we’re about to play is born of a considerable amount of confusion, doubt, sadness and concern for the world,” she says. “When I sing this song now, I’m in a really different place. It was worth every last bit to get to tonight.”