Chappell Roan at House of Blues, 10/15/23
Upon attending Chappell Roan’s show at House of Blues, it would be easy to assume she’s a widely acclaimed and well-seasoned performer. Fans were dressed in extravagant outfits and lined up around the block for the sold out show. The audience sang the words to every song, and even knew the moves for one in which Chappell teaches simple choreography. Chappell had seemingly endless energy on stage as she jumped to every song. Her spectacular performance and dedicated fanbase make it hard to believe that she had never headline toured before this year; this tour is for her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.
Chappell Roan’s music – self-described as “slumber party pop” – can be accredited to her small town upbringing and journey to discovering her queerness. Her music contains countless lines surrounding heartbreak, sexuality, queerness, and even specific callouts to her hometown in Missouri. She’s been quoted as saying her album is for “the girls, gays, and theys.”
Her theming is evident not just in lyrics, but in every aspect of her show. She performs in flamboyant outfits that match a new theme for each night of the tour. For the Boston show she instructed fans to dress in black and red for her song “My Kink is Karma,” and accordingly wore a black corset adorned with chains, black star pasties, fishnet stockings, and a red garter. It was impossible not to notice the coordination in the audience; nearly every fan wore devil horns, a cowboy hat, fishnets, lace, statement jewelry, or some combination thereof. “People want an excuse to look hot, and I want to give it to them,” Roan said in an interview with Melisma.
After settling in (and surely complimenting each other’s outfits), the House of Blues audience was introduced to the opening act of Boston’s own Tara Dikhof, Kulfi Jaan, and Chanel Thee Angel. These were just some of many incredible drag queens that opened on the tour, as Chappell and her team select three local performers for each show. They didn’t disappoint; the audience erupted into chaos as each queen showed off extravagant outfits, strip teases, and flips. They even called up one lucky audience member to the stage and crowned her queen of the night for having the best outfit. They encouraged her to do a runway walk before placing a bedazzled sash on her shoulders and sending her back into the crowd for the rest of the show.
Following a short break, Chappell finally took the stage to screams and cheers with her song “Femininomenon.” The song is already a perfect opener for the set with its increasing tempo, but our audience was especially excited to sing along as one of the first few lines references Boston. The excitement continued as she followed with “Red Wine Supernova.” The song, released as a single earlier this year, has some of Chappell’s trademark outrageous lyrics. She cited “I heard you like magic / I got a wand and a rabbit” as one of her favorites in our interview: “I mean we were just cracking ourselves up while writing that… it’s so unserious.”
Throughout the set Chappell continued to dance, jump, and at one point fully lay on her back while kicking her feet in the air and continuing to sing . She told us that her past performances have taught her to physically prepare more: “I was exhausted… this time around I trained by singing the entire set every day while running, doing jumping jacks, doing burpees.” The work was evident as she never missed a beat. After teaching some fun choreography to the audience, covering Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” and shouting out each of her band members, Chappell still managed to shift the tone for her more serious ballads like “Coffee” and “Kaleidoscope.” Fans sang along to create a beautiful and intimate moment before ramping back up for the final few songs.
Her electric finale was a confirmation of what was already made clear in the opening song: Chappell Roan is a pop icon in the making, and we should all be watching.
