Chappell Roan
Main Stage, Electric Picnic
★★★★★
Good luck to the rest of the Electric Picnic line-up who face the near impossible task of matching Chappell Roan’s stunning Friday evening set. Drawing what might be the largest ever main stage audience to the festival, the Pink Pony Club singer delivers a breathtakingly dark and stormy performance – a tour de force billowing with dry ice, heavy metal guitars and vocals that hit like a typhoon.
The Missouri-born Grammy winner has talked frankly about the strain of overnight fame - but at Stradbally, she is a superstar in her element, delivering an epic turn that is 50 per cent stadium pop, 50 per cent big-haired rock opera.
Arriving to a squall of guitars from her all-female backing band, she is dressed like a villain from a Disney cartoon while her stage presence is a mix of Alice Cooper and Lana Del Rey. She also seems to be that rare pop star who has a deep appreciation of 1980s fantasy movies: the baroque castle backdrop evokes Jim Henson’s Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, while the appearance of her “tour pet” Shigella – a prop worked up by her costume designer – makes it look like she’s serenading Gollum from The Lord of the Rings.
Roan’s songs are supersized explorations of her memories of growing up as a queer woman in a conservative Christian household – experiences she supercharges in gut-wrenching tales of heartache and triumph on opener Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl and the blitzing Femininomenon.
She could have filled Dublin’s Olympia many times over when she made her Irish debut last year. Her star has ascended further yet in the interim: at Stradbally, her audience’s passion twinkles almost as brightly as their pink cowboy hats as the sun goes down.
Banter is at a minimum, though she does reveal that the love of her Irish fanbase runs strong. “Ireland has stood up for me always like no other country has,” she says. “Thank you for being there for me.”
Like a high-concept mix of wicked witch and fairy godmother, she sprinkles her biggest hits like stardust through her set. They include HOT TO GO!, where she encourages the crowd to spell out the chorus, and the resplendent Good Luck, Babe. How to top that shining banger on a hill? With Pink Pony Club, of course – her valentine to being yourself and living your most fantastic life that sweeps Stradbally off to a place of white hot bliss as darkness settles in.
