Concert Review: Reneé Rapp at Stubb’s
Reneé Rapp brought powerhouse vocals, seasonal symbolism, and unapologetically queer vivacity to a sold-out Stubb’s on Sept. 18.
Written by Janie Bickerton
Photos by Carolyn Parmer
Content Warning: This article contains discussion of a traumatic experience involving drugging.
First introduced to the pop culture scene by winning the top prize at the 2018 Jimmy Awards, Reneé Rapp was destined to grace pop music with her powerful vocals and confident stage presence. Some may know her as the domineering Regina George in the Broadway production of “Mean Girls” or the preppy, secretive Leighton Murray on Max’s “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” but many fans old and new know her best for her music. Reneé Rapp, a multi-faceted entertainer who recently added pop music to her repertoire of talents, set off in September on her “Snow Hard Feelings Tour” for her debut album Snow Angel. Singing about annoying exes, personified trees, and snow angels, Rapp brought one hour of soulful pop energy that Austin needed on a hot Monday night.
Towa Bird, a Filipino-English singer and guitarist, started off the evening promptly at 7:00 p.m. with several original punk-rock jams. “Hey bisexuals,” she said to the crowd before returning to electric guitar licks. With only three released songs to her name, Bird played some unreleased originals, including “Bills,” a loud, rebellious anthem about raging against financial stress. “I can’t even afford the jeans I’m wearing / The shoes I’m standing in,” Bird sang, channeling anti-establishment punk rockers of decades past with her yelling intonation and blunt lyricism. Before leaving the stage, she urged the audience to come chat with her afterwards at the merch table. The electric guitarist set the energetic mood for the night with her vibrant set and kind disposition towards Rapp’s fans.
Next up was Alexander 23, a pop singer and co-producer of Snow Angel. “Super Bass” by Nicki Minaj began to boom across the amphitheater at 7:44 p.m., signifying Alexander 23’s saunter onto the stage before beginning the upbeat “Cosplay.” Funky keys were the stand out in the next song “Girl,” a lo-fi track about being utterly enamored by someone’s essence. He then transported the audience to 2015 with an electrifying cover of One Direction’s “Steal My Girl,” complete with a rock outro. Alexander 23 closed his set with “IDK You Yet,” a TikTok-viral ballad about the yearning loneliness that comes with being single. Dismal guitar strums and his quivering yet strong vocals added a somber air to the amphitheater as the crowd recorded and chanted along. Lightening the mood, Alexander 23 walked off the same way he started his set— with the sweet sounds of Ms. Minaj.
Jittery fans waited for 9:00 p.m. to strike as crew members transformed the stage with floral shrubbery and the sound of Top 40 hits. It was 9:02 p.m. when the lights dimmed and soundbites of Rapp’s soaring vocals played over clips of a young Reneé Rapp on the stage screen. The clips then cut to her red-lipsticked mouth lip-syncing the words to the Snow Angel single “Talk Too Much,” with the snow angel herself taking the stage.
The show’s ingenious structure drew inspiration from the title track’s most hard-hitting lyric, one that Rapp herself listed as a highlight from a good writing day for Snow Angel — “The seasons change / Addiction’s strange.” Ordering the show with collections of songs for each season, Rapp took the audience on a year-long journey in just an hour.
After an ebullient opening of the spring section with “Talk Too Much,” the screen behind Rapp switched to a seductively-posed figure wearing pumps and a hazmat suit, aptly depicting the bossa nova bop “Poison Poison.” “And yes, I am a feminist / But, bitch you're making it so hard for me to always be / Supporting all women” the crowd shouted along with Rapp, scorning her ex-lover. Every lyric dripped with agitation as she controlled the stage with petty confidence. She ended the song in typical Rapp fashion with a spot-on riff and one last expletive towards her ex.
The Austin crowd happened to gather on a special day for Snow Angel. “Apparently today is the one month anniversary,” Rapp mentioned before describing one of her favorites from the album. “This next song is about a tree personified, being, like, me as a kid. If you get it, you get it, and if you don’t, then you’re about to.” And thus the somber keys of “Willow” wafted through the amphitheater.
Shifting to the summer section of the show, Rapp sang of meeting a “young ex-wife” in “Colorado,” with the Rockies behind her selling her escapist fantasy. She then kept spirits high as she held up a bra and urged the crowd to jump during “Pretty Girls,” which explores tipsy, straight women’s tendency to exploit their gay friends for the sake of “experimenting.” This upbeat track masking disappointing undertones struck a chord with the mostly queer crowd, which Rapp addressed after the song. “We’re very bi, we’re very aware,” she joked after wishing the audience a happy Bisexual Awareness Week. Rapp then confronted sadness head-on with “23,” a ballad that exposes her greatest fears about feeling hopelessly behind and hated as she gets older. To close out the summer portion, the singer brought out Towa Bird to play guitar during “Tummy Hurts.” The audience sang along to the track that reflects on a toxic ex, but they yelled with Rapp: “I just want some recognition for having good tits and a big heart.” “I believe Sondheim wrote that,” Rapp quipped about the lyric, which captured a forthright wittiness that kept her motivated while writing Snow Angel over six months.
Next came the autumn set, where Rapp sang about being territorial over cities after a break up. She most potently portrayed this theme in “I Hate Boston,” which culminated in a powerhouse final chorus: “How'd you make me hate Boston? / The whole thing is haunted / How do you sleep?” Rapp transitioned into “So What Now,” a pop track about exes finding themselves in the same area. “What gives you the right to come back to the city that I live in?” she sang with vexation, ending the song with an angelically high riff. She continued to deliver show-stopping vocals in “Tattoos,” a full-circle moment for Rapp and her fans, as it was the first song she put out independently..
The Broadway-turned-pop star prefaced her next song with a surprising tidbit — “Too Well,” her first major single, is her band’s favorite to play and her least favorite to sing. Nevertheless, she delivered with rising vocals as her band played jovially and the words of the chorus flashed in bold behind her.
The seasons changed one final time with “Gemini Moon” ushering in winter. Rapp’s moving chorus induced sways in the crowd as she sang of admitting to her faults. The blue moon behind her shifted to a burning red chapel as she uttered the opening lyrics of “The Wedding Song,” a powerful ode about lasting love. “I’m gonna love you ‘til my heart retires,” Rapp belted beautifully at the emotional height of the chorus. Alexander 23 returned to the stage to acoustically accompany Rapp for one of her most depressing songs. The pair sat on some staged shrubbery, Alexander 23 strumming the guitar and Rapp crooning about life’s transience even for loved ones: “How can the person who taught me to breathe / Take their last breath right in front of me?”
If “The Wedding Song” took the audience to the chapel, then “In The Kitchen” took them to church. Every voice at the amphitheater came together in a moment of collective effervescence by singing the ballad’s encapsulating lyric: “Strangers to lovers to enemies.” By far a fan favorite, “In The Kitchen” saw Rapp’s best vocals of the night and her exit before the encore.
Donning an oversized hockey jersey and jorts for most of the show, the singer emerged for the encore in all white to channel her final song, “Snow Angel.” Rapp wrote the highly personal track to process a terrifying night after a breakup where she was drugged and lost consciousness for seven hours, as she revealed on the “On Purpose” podcast. Rapp’s performance delivered the emotional delicacy of the traumatic event in the first half of the song before she belted the jaw-dropping bridge. To call her high notes angelic would be an understatement. Rapp blew away the venue as she clutched her chest and reminded the crowd of her Broadway training. Ending the “Snow Hard Feelings Tour” with the flurry of emotions that is “Snow Angel,” Rapp thanked the crowd for a fantastic night and made her exit with a final fanfare from the band.
Rapp dazzled the stage with her infectious smile, wind-swept platinum blonde hair, and cheerfully confident stage presence. Her past as Regina George certainly shone in her supported timbre, but her Broadway roots did not pigeonhole her style as a performer. She connected with the crowd differently than she had on the Broadway stage and TV screen by showing refreshing honesty about the songwriting process. Rapp’s experience in the entertainment industry may have given her a shoe-in with previously established fans and a recognizable name, but her command of the stage and refreshingly witty lyricism make her shift to pop one of deserved success. Her performance may have been short — her entire discography is merely an hour and four minutes — but it was certainly sweet. Reneé Rapp proved to Austin that even if the seasons change, she is here to stay as a promising new popstar.