Words by Erandhi Mendis // Photography by Abby Waisler
There’s something disarmingly tender about the quiet ritual of concert dressing—bows carefully tied, Converse laced and white linen skirts ironed – so considered they could be acts of devotion. On a chilly night in Melbourne, seeing carbon copies of this combination shiver around the city, you would be remiss to not question – where are they going?
Over the past four years, Gracie Abrams has orchestrated a deeply personal ascent into pop music. To the casual listener, she may seem indistinguishable from the broader wave of bedroom pop—a young woman with a soft voice and a catalog of pensive, acerbic confessionals. Yet, unlike those in her ether – she has broken into the mainstream with the kind of staying power that seems unlikely for a voice that began just pre-lockdown as little more than a whisper. It is surprising not least of all Abrams, who seems almost bashful about her own momentum in an industry that prizes immediacy and spectacle. She engages in neither on her first night of a three row run in Melbourne.
Before Abrams arrives on stage, the mood is set: Ariana Grande’s we can’t be friends hums through Rod Laver Arena, a glossy, heartbroken sigh. The floor is at capacity, a sea of ribbons already in chorus. When Abrams appears, she is draped in a glittering, floor-length blue velvet gown. Her silhouette is just distinguishable through the smoke; a Tumblr-era prom queen made modern. The crowd roars to the opening chords of Felt Good About You. Flanked by a full band, she dives into a triptych of crushes and quiet devastation (Risk, Blowing Smoke, Where Do We Go Now), songs that turn romantic ruin into something soft and shimmering. It’s intimate, but with the studied polish of someone who knows exactly how vulnerability plays under a spotlight.
What’s most astonishing, is the vocal. She sounds powerful – both in sheer force and clarity. Where her earlier work leaned heavily on breathiness and restraint, she now sings with a control and depth that suggests she’s spent time in vocal training to achieve a subtle power. It’s not big, belting pop-star theatrics, but something sturdier and more deliberate; it adds a new dimension to even her softest material, grounding all the longing and indecision in something that feels far more certain.
Abrams’ fans—overwhelmingly young and overwhelmingly loud—scream with the kind of devotional intensity that feels incongruous with whispery chronicles of romantic unease. She’s carved out a space as something of an “it girl,” albeit a more easily digestible version: stylish but approachable, famous but not too famous, nepotism in a way that rarely ruffles feathers. Onstage, she returns that adoration with earnest intimacy—taking song requests, filming herself on fans’ phones, accepting handmade gifts like they’re sacred objects. It feels less like performance and more like communion – you can tell she cares for every face in the crowd.
When Abrams introduces Camden, she prefaces it with a soft confession: “I felt really sad when I wrote this one, and then less sad and less alone when you guys took it and made it your own.” The song itself is one of her most piercing; a murmur of grief wrapped in acoustic lucidity. Someone in the crowd laughs at her cooing over avoiding cigarettes in the verse – a quiet irony, Abrams now years later is consistently pictured casually smoking. It’s the kind of contradiction that only adds texture – a subtle complication in a catalogue that trades on the illusion of simplicity.
The middle of the setlist is more lovestruck and far less listless. Between Normal Thing, Let It Happen, and Tough Love, Abrams bounces across the stage, FaceTiming fans and beaming like someone who’s finally in on the joke. It’s obvious she’s enjoying herself, and how could you not. Around me, teenagers belt every word like their lives depend on it, and I’m reminded how formative this kind of performance can feel when you’re that age. I’m here with one of my oldest friends—we laugh, half-joking, that we were these girls once, in this exact arena. And then we realise: we very much still are. We just sit down a little more often now.
On the B-stage, Abrams recreates her childhood bedroom in uncanny detail – twin bed draped in rocket ship sheets, a grainy string light glow that nods to the YouTube videos where it all started. She shares a sweet moment with a fan called Scarlett – who is sobbing in the front row with her father. Abrams hand writes her a tattoo and then takes four Polaroid photos of the stadium from the middle of the room.
It’s here she sings I miss you, I’m sorry, the song that cracked everything open for her, both sonically and emotionally. “I feel really privileged to be growing up at the same time as all of you,” she says softly. “So much is grim right now… but when we’re on the same livestream or in the same place like tonight, it makes me feel way more connected. For that reason I’m grateful for this song—it’s when I totally fell in love with all of you.” It’s a moment that manages to feel both deeply nostalgic and fully present, a self-mythologising gesture that somehow avoids the usual cloying artifice.
The final stretch of the set blurs in the best way – Us, her downbeat Taylor Swift duet, feels looser and far more compelling live, while the devastating bridge of Free Now lands like a gut punch; an unexpectedly perfect closer. She disappears briefly, then of course returns for her two most popular songs: That’s So True and Close To You.
These are the viral songs that built her TikTok mythology. Their absence from the main set is surprising at first, but makes sense—Abrams doesn’t yet have the catalogue to burn her biggest songs early. They hit like glitter bombs: loud, sugary and perfectly engineered for crowd-wide singalongs. It’s at this moment I think that Abrams is sonically lost between brilliant pop songwriting and her breathy acoustic roots. She’ll no doubt reconcile that tension in time – her stardom precedes her infancy in the industry sometimes. As the chorus of Close To You buzzes through the room, a thousand hair ribbons bounce in unison. Perhaps this is the spectacle after all, it’s hard to imagine a more satisfying ending. For now, that’s more than enough.
