8 Best Moments From Olivia Rodrigo’s Headlining Gov Ball 2025 Set: ‘I Want Them to Hear Us in F—king Manhattan’

About an hour after The Go-Go’s “We Received the Beat” blasted by way of the mainstage audio system as a part of Rodrigo’s pre-show playlist, who would’ve guessed that one other Nineteen Eighties basic would make its method onto her setlist… and with an IRL shock.

Following a shifting efficiency of “favourite crime,” a starstruck Rodrigo launched rock legend David Byrne for a duet rendition of Speaking Heads’ “Burning Down the Home.” Rodrigo and the now 73-year-old rocker, carrying a white tee and crimson overalls (which completely matched Rodrigo’s two-piece set), flawlessly switched off strains of the 1983 smash and fortunately danced across the stage. All through the efficiency, Rodrigo even took half in a few of Byrne’s signature choreo.

After kicking off the ultimate set of the night time along with her GUTS deluxe single “obsessed” adopted by fan-favorite “ballad of a homeschool lady,” Rodrigo slowed it down with what might solely be described as a holy trinity of back-to-back ballads.

Sitting at a grand piano, “Vampire” was the proper method for Rodrigo to tee up the trio of slower songs. By the point its climactic bridge hit, the group’s vocal cords have been warmed up for what was to come: the track that began all of it and her first Billboard Sizzling 100 No. 1 “drivers license” (Rodrigo mentioned that she thinks “of my life in earlier than and after this track”). For the ultimate track in this little trio, she went with “traitor” a transparent fan-favorite from her debut album contemplating that the group was simply as loud, if not louder, than they have been only one track earlier than.

“I wrote this track after I was falling in love with this boy,” Rodrigo cheekily shared with the group earlier than going into “so american,” a GUTS (spilled) observe that followers consider was written as a love letter to her boyfriend, English actor Louis Partridge.

“Possibly you’ll perceive this sense once you’re first falling in love with somebody, and all the things you do, you simply consider them,” she continued. “Once I wrote this track, I used to be driving in the automotive, pondering of this particular person, and I began buzzing this refrain, and it changed into this track.” We’ll take the Louvia crumbs.

Aside from a shortened setlist, there have been a couple of key variations between Rodrigo’s competition set and final 12 months’s GUTS tour. For one, the on-screen visuals are barely totally different, though they undoubtedly nonetheless match throughout the GUTS world.

Her background dancers have been additionally lower from this gig, giving the highlight to simply Rodrigo and her all-female band. She carried out a stripped-back rendition of “fairly isn’t fairly” with simply her strumming her acoustic guitar, and later outfitted herself with simply an electrical guitar for a solo efficiency of her heart-wrenching SOUR ballad, “sufficient for you.”

Some encores don’t give what they want to give, however Rodrigo’s was not that. It was a pair minutes after 10:30 p.m. when she wrapped up her efficiency of “deja vu” — which appeared to be the ultimate track of the night time after Rodrigo exited the stage. That was till a surprising visible of her gracefully sitting in a white slip costume popped up throughout the massive display, which was quickly engulfed in digital flames.

By 10:37 p.m., Rodrigo re-emerged, outfitted with a crimson megaphone adorning her first and solely outfit change of the night time: a crimson and white cropped baseball tee that learn “New York Metropolis By no means Appeared So Blue.”

The songs in the encore have been simply as satisfying: “brutal,” “all-american b—h,” “good 4 u” and “get him again!”

With him taking the stage simply an hour earlier than her, Rodrigo took a minute out of her set to give a shoutout to her longtime buddy and fellow artist, Conan Grey.

“I like him a lot, he’s my finest buddy,” she excitedly instructed the group forward of singing “sufficient for you” (a SOUR observe she revealed is her “favourite track she’s ever written”).

Grey delivered a mainstage set full with props and a fancy dress to match the sailor aesthetic of his upcoming album Wishbone, for which he simply launched its first single, “This Music.”

“Have you ever listened to his new track but?” Rodrigo requested the group, which instantly erupted in screams. “That’s the correct reply. I like him a lot and I like taking part in music.”

It turned a GUTS tour custom for Rodrigo to lead followers in a primal scream fest throughout her efficiency of “all-american b—h” — and that custom continued for her Gov Ball set’s penultimate track.

“There may be a lot s—t to be pissed off about in the world in the present day,” she mentioned earlier than stepping into the track’s bridge. “Once I let you know ‘go,’ I would like you to scream as loud as you possibly can and let all of it out. Okay? I would like them to hear us in f—ing Manhattan.” (The competition takes place exterior the town in Queens, N.Y.).

In all probability channeling their feelings that got here with the delay, downpour, mud and muggy climate that got here earlier in the day, the group actually adopted instructions. When Rodrigo tee’d up the screams with the primary line of the bridge and and mentioned “go,” the stage went utterly black — and for a very good 10 seconds, all that might be heard have been essentially the most guttural of screams. Not that the remainder of the present wasn’t, however this was a real second of group catharsis.

Encore