Before Chappell Roan took the main stage at Øyafestivalen on Wednesday (Aug. 6) night in Norway, thousands of fans in fuzzy pink cowboy hats, chalky white face paint and a variety of looks from her music videos waited patiently on the tree-dotted lawn of Oslo’s gorgeous Tøyen Park.
From a nearby stage, Australian punk band the Chats could be heard raging about everything from identify theft to the rising cost of smokes. For those unfamiliar with Roan’s live sets, the pre-show sonic bleed might have seemed like an incongruous juxtaposition, given that Roan is ostensibly a pop artist. But when she hit the stage for her Øyafestivalen debut, it quickly became clear that Roan and her all-female backing band can land a rock n’ roll punch just as well as a punk outfit (or any band that falls more obviously under the rock umbrella). The drums are hefty yet lean, thumping and energetic; the guitars crackle like fireworks and cut like buzzsaws; and Roan’s voice can give falsetto highs, growly lows and from-the-gut shrieks at a level above most pop stars.
Two years out from The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess and the runaway success of that LP and follow-up singles “Good Luck, Babe!” and “The Giver” (both Billboard Hot 100 top 10s), Roan is now on the Visions of Damsels and Other Dangerous Things Tour. The new stage design offers up an alternately whimsical and foreboding fairytale atmosphere, with red eyes peeping out from a stony gazebo, images of gargoyles flapping above church spires and an intricate art nouveau gate that looks like a castle one moment and a cemetery the next. It’s all fantastical camp, exactly the kind of heartfelt cosplay that has attracted LGBTQ people, allies and outside-the-box oddballs to Roan’s world, which is both refreshingly candid and playfully unserious, sometimes within the same song.
Here are nine highlights from Chappell Roan at Øyafestivalen, from the first post-release performance of new single “The Subway” to a shout-out to her mom, who was in the crowd.
Billboard’s travel and accommodations for Øyafestivalen were provided by Music Norway, which was founded by the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Culture and Equality.
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