It was a typical November night in Vancouver’s rainy season, which means that it was pouring and the rain was ice cold. Though you wouldn’t be able to tell from inside the Hollywood Theatre, where the crowd gathered was dressed in rainbow lingerie inspired outfits, fit for a summer Pride parade.
After a drag performance by local Vancouver performers Androgynass, Jas Minh and Batty Banks, Chappell Roan’s Vancouver stop of The Midwest Princess Tour opened with “Femininomenon.” It was an explosion of sound as the crowd screamed along to the lyrics “get it hot like Papa John, make a bitch go on and on.”
The energy in the pit was electric. The audience was eager and Roan herself was covered in glitter and wearing rainbow fishnets with a sort of magenta metallic bikini and a stash of flowers. Unabashedly camp, her drag persona was amplified tenfold on stage as she leaned into performing a hypersexual caricature simply interested in chasing pleasure — shouts of “you’re so sexy” from the audience came intermittently.
Yet above all, Chappell Roan’s voice cut through the glitter and coloured lights. She pranced around on stage while delivering vocals that somehow sounded even better live. As she cycled through the set list, her voice went from over-the-top girly pop, to raw and sharp then soft and rounded.
The night ended with crowd favourite “Pink Pony Club,” after which the line to the coat check seemed to form instantaneously. As we shrugged on our winter coats and dispersed into the cold rainy night, a little bit of the glitter still stuck to our skin.
