Snow white makeup, pink prom dress, lipstick-stained teeth, blue eye shadow, and a messy, massive orange wig. That’s a drag queen for you!
On Thursday, Chappell Roan delivered a campy, early-Lady-Gaga-esque performance of some of the standouts from her debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess on NPR‘s Tiny Desk. It’s a performance we’ll be coming back to when she blows up.
Backed by a full band (all in matching silly, smeared makeup), the Missouri-born star opened her performance with “Casual.” Where better to sing “Knee deep in the passenger seat while you’re eating me out” than a non-profit radio station’s office?
“I didn’t really watch the Super Bowl last night. I don’t care, first of all. Who fucking cares,” she joked. “This is my Super Bowl.” Roan then pulled out a disposable camera and snapped photos of the audience and her band before her queer utopia-manifesting “Pink Pony Club.”
“Also this wig. Though it looks like it’s all my hair, it’s a wig,” Roan said, before pulling out a bedazzled flip phone and brattishly sending a text message. Roan then performed the slower “Picture You” and later “California” after introducing her band. “I love NPR guys. Wait! I donate,” Roan told the crowd, which erupted in claps. “Yeah. Not to brag but like, I’m really giving.”
Roan closed her performance with a rendition of “Red Wine Supernova” in which her vocals absolutely shined. She also reminded her band: “Be bimbos, ladies. Be bimbos!”
The new performance arrives as Rolling Stone named her one of music’s Future 25 as the “future of pop” music Thursday. “This just rocks,” she told Rolling Stone. “It’s amazing to be living up my little pop-star life. It’s so slay.”
Roan dropped her album last September. It was ranked as the 12th best album of 2023 by Rolling Stone. She’s currently on tour with Olivia Rodrigo on the Guts world tour.