Queens of the bittersweet ballad

TIM DE LISLE Olivia Rodrigo

Eventim Apollo, London ★★★★☆

Adele

Hyde Park, London ★★★★☆

Pop music in the 21st Century is a broad church. Last week I reviewed the oldest singer I had ever seen – Frankie

Valli, aged 88. This week it’s the youngest: Olivia Rodrigo, just 19.

Her set list includes a cover of Complicated by Avril Lavigne.

When that song was a hit in 2002, Rodrigo wasn’t even born. Her fans, naturally, are even younger: many are still at primary school, and if you’re after a T-shirt, it had better not be a small, because all the merch stalls have run out.

Rodrigo (inset right) is a FilipinaGerman-Irish American and an alumna of Disney’s High School Musical series. With only one album to draw on – Sour, still in the top ten after 58 weeks – she plays the whole thing. The kids, nearly all girls, sing every word. This is not so much a gig, more a giant school concert.

Rodrigo’s mother is a teacher, her father a family therapist. Her show lasts exactly an hour, as if slotting into a timetable, and is quite old-school, with no video screen. Between songs she seems calm and composed, but during them she lets rip, yelling her way through the pop-punk numbers, pouring her heart out in the ballads.

She plays piano and guitar and shows an impressive ability to read the room. At Glastonbury, after naming the American judges who had thrown out Roe vs Wade, she brought on Lily Allen to sing F*** You, converting her anger into communal joy.

Here she leaves politics alone, rightly judging that abortion rulings wouldn’t mean much to the ten-yearolds, and brings out Natalie Imbruglia for a carefree rendition of Torn. Imbruglia, old enough to be Rodrigo’s mum, bounces around like a teenager.

Compared to Rodrigo, Adele (now 34) is almost a dowager. Her album 30 was last seen languishing at No 74 and in Hyde Park she plays fewer tracks from it than from 21 (2011). Her opening gambit is Hello, just like at Wembley Stadium five years ago.

But if 30 is unloved, Adele herself is still adored. Her fans cherish the fact that she’s now so glam – black ballgown, blonde up-do, Hollywood skincare – yet still so normal. ‘Anyone celebrating a special occasion tonight?’ she says, making conversation with 50,000 people.

Sometimes you wish she’d let her music do the talking, because her singing voice is a marvel. The gospeldisco songs get the park jumping, and Someone Like You fills the air with fabulously mixed feelings – delight at meeting an old friend, dismay as we feel her pain.

Maximum bittersweetness: the essence of pop.