“We’re going to teach you a dance,” Chappell Roan says, as if there’s anyone in the audience tonight who still doesn’t know her infamous “Hot to Go!” choreography.
In reality, the crowd of thousands at Saturday’s (Sept. 20) show at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, New York, hasn’t just been waiting all night for this — many of them have been waiting several months. It’s been quite some time since the Missouri native performed in her home country, with the end of 2024 marking a particularly rough period for her. In addition to canceling two stateside shows for mental health reasons, she faced onslaughts of backlash for everything from speaking out about predatory fan behaviors to criticizing Kamala Harris amid the presidential race, leading to her largely stepping back from the internet.
Now, a packed audience dotted with pink cowboy hats and Lady Liberty crowns — nods to Roan’s getup at the 2024 Governor’s Ball, one of the last times she performed in New York — embraces her completely, every bump in the road forgotten. Looking out at a sea of arms eagerly forming the shapes of the letters “H-O-T-T-O-G-O” (“I think you get it,” she giggles, abandoning her dance tutorial after one run-through), she looks stronger than ever, strutting around the stage in a sexy Captain Hook-esque outfit without missing a note as flames erupt behind her.
Saturday’s concert is the first of eight pop-up performances in the U.S. that Roan has generously tacked onto her European Visions of Damsels & Other Dangerous Things Tour, and one of four dates slated for NYC. The setlist is full of high-octane numbers from her 2023 debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, with “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl,” “Femininomenon,” “After Midnight,” “Naked in Manhattan” (“Can you believe it? We’re in New York!” she yells triumphantly midway through), “Guilty Pleasure” and “Casual” preceding “Hot to Go!,” as well as new single “The Subway,” which recently earned Roan her highest-ever peak on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 3.
Later in the show, she writhes around on the stage floor while covering Heart’s “Barracuda,” sensually serenades a mic stand topped with a blonde wig for the waltzy “Picture You,” line dances with her bandmates to March single “The Giver” and fills up the stadium with impressive high note after high note during “Good Luck, Babe!,” the breakout hit that catapulted the pop singer to superstardom with unprecedented swiftness in spring 2024. The latter two tracks are expected to appear on Roan’s next LP, which she plans to start work on after the tour ends in October. (“It took me five years to write the first [album], and it’s probably going to take at least five to write the next,” she warned in a recent interview with Vogue.)
Though Roan is a total force on stage, polished and magnetic while trouncing around a set made to look like an illustrated fairytale castle, the show is not without her signature frankness. She hilariously breaks character at one point to inform the crowd that she’d totally forgotten her entire “a—s” was on display in her outfit until she was taken by surprise at the sight of her own rear-end on one of the big screens behind her. Toward the end, while singing the vulnerable and now-deeply-ironic “California” about worrying she’ll never make it in the music business, she interjects, “I just saw someone yawn — that’s crazy.”
She also takes a tender moment to address why her return home is so momentous. “It’s been quite a year,” she tells the crowd around the halfway point in the show. “I can’t believe we’re here, honestly. It’s crazy. Thank you for sticking with me through it, I know it was … it’s been really hard.”
“I’m so glad I can come to work like this,” she continues. “I just needed a place like this so bad when I was 13, 14. I just wanted to dress up however I wanted, and I wanted to wear makeup and look weird. So I hope you know that you’re welcome here, however you show up today. You are cherished.”
As Roan dives into “Kaleidoscope,” her fans band together to let her know that the feeling is very much mutual. A dazzling rainbow suddenly appears and winks back at her as she sings, with the concertgoers in the back several rows of the stadium holding up multicolored lights in one unified effort.
“Everyone look behind you,” she instructs the rest of the crowd before momentarily forgetting the song’s lyrics, distracted by the emotionally charged gesture — the only hiccup in an otherwise flawless show. “You’ve got the rainbow! It’s a kaleidoscope! It’s so beautiful!”
After her stay at Forest Hills, Roan will play two nights in Kansas City before closing out the Visions of Damsels & Other Dangerous Things Tour with two nights in Los Angeles. See Roan’s full setlist at the first night of her NYC shows below.
- “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl”
- “Femininomenon”
- “After Midnight”
- “Naked in Manhattan”
- “Guilty Pleasure”
- “Casual”
- “The Subway”
- “Hot to Go!”
- “Barracuda” (Heart cover)
- “Picture You”
- “Kaleidoscope”
- “Love Me Anyway”
- “The Giver”
- “Red Wine Supernova”
- “Coffee”
- “Good Luck, Babe!”
- “My Kink Is Karma”
- “California”
- “Pink Pony Club”
