[Review] Chappell Roan’s The Midwest Princess Tour

Chappell Roan played a sold-out show at the Joy Theater on Saturday night as she brought The Midwest Princess Tour to the South. The tour follows the release of her debut album, The Rise and Fal of a Midwest Princess, which dropped only a month ago. You may have previously seen Roan perform as an opener for Olivia Rodrigo’s SOUR Tour or Fletcher’s Girl of My Dreams Tour. But Saturday night proved Roan could hold her own as the rising pop star put on an electrifying show to a sold-out crowd.

Back in September, Roan shared a post to Instagram (and reshared it to her story the morning of the show) with Fall Tour Themes. New Orleans fell under the Pink Pony Club theme – where the mood board included pictures of Dolly Parton, Margot Robbie’s Barbie character, and Lil Nas X. The fans understood the assignment. Concert-goers were decked out in hot pink, cowboy hats, boots, chaps, and cow print. The line outside of the Joy Theater looked like a mix between a scene from Barbie movie and out-of-towners on Broadway Street in Nashville.

At 8 o’clock on the dot, the show began. Unlike your typical concert, the show opened with a drag show featuring three drag queens from the New Orleans area: Mistié Bonet, Laveau Contraire, and London Manchester. The queens took turns performing hits from Britney Spears, Lizzo, Nicki Minaj, and more. At one point, they asked if someone in the audience had a gold wristband in their possession. Once identified, that fan was brought on stage and crowned Miss New Orleans. The queens thanked the lucky fan on behalf of Chappell Roan for being a fan and attending the show!

Chappell Roan

Just after 9 p.m., Chappell Roan took the stage wearing a shimmering pink outfit, colorful eye shadow, and her signature long red curls! The 25-year-old singer from Missouri opened the show with “Femininomenon,” which felt fitting seeing as it’s the opening track of her debut album. For over an hour, Roan and her three-member band performed the majority of her discography – from tracks on her recent debut album to her 2018 single, “School Nights” to a cover of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” (with the iconic choreography and all)!

You couldn’t help but be pulled in by Roan’s infectious stage energy. She admitted due to the lights she couldn’t read notes people wrote on their phone screens but she made a point to interact with the crowd as much as possible. “This is the first crowd out of twenty-three shows that have been seated in the balcony,” she shared with the crowd halfway through her set. “Regardless if you’re seated or standing, there is one thing you have to do.” She stopped to teach the audience how to spell HOT-TO-GO with their arms.

Roan is a rising queer icon for her generation. As mentioned earlier, her show openers are local drag queens from each city she stops in. In the middle of her set, Roan took a moment to encourage the crowd to support their local queer community, specifically tip the drag queens who opened the show. Their names, Instagram handles, and Venmos were available at the merch table, in addition to being shared with her 225k followers via her Instagram story. In addition, she shared that a donation from every ticket sale went directly to For the Gworls: a charity that helps Black Trans people with rent, gas, utilities, gender-affirming surgeries, and more.

The crowd broke out into a “Chap-pell” chant then a “Pink Pony Club” chant. Roan returned to the stage for an encore where she finished the night off with a performance of “California” followed by the highly anticipated (and high energy) performance of “Pink Pony Club”.

Did you miss Chappell Roan’s sold-out show? The Midwest Princess Tour is continuing until November 14th and she’ll be opening for Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS world tour in Spring 2024.