Early last Wednesday evening, I found myself standing amongst a sea of excited tweens and opulently dressed influencers, all anxiously waiting for a large set of doors to swing open.
I had snagged a last minute invitation to the opening of Olivia Rodrigo's Guts Gallery Pop-Up in Sydney ahead of her run of concerts here, a pleasant mid-week outing punctuated by lurid purple mocktails, a table heaving with sparkling cupcakes (and some cakes that had gotten on the wrong side of a dagger) and the quickened heartbeats of a slew of girls who were all deeply aware that their hero was about to step into the room.
And then she appeared, a 21-year-old woman in a white mini-dress and glittering red flats, a line to meet her instantly forming and snaking around the room, vibrating with the anticipation usually reserved for a fake Crumbl cookie pop up.
Watch: Get to know Olivia Rodrigo. Post continues after video.
Like many fans, I had first become aware of the songstress after she was cast in the Disney+ series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (mostly because I remember having to stop and take a deep breath every time I pronounced the name of her series on my podcast).
Like every other human being with a soul and a Spotify account, the three time Grammy winner's songs have been added to my life's soundtrack over the years.
'Drivers License' and 'Happier' have kept me company on many slow meandering walks, I've hit play on 'Good 4 U' and 'Love Is Embarrassing' hundreds of times when I needed a burst of energy to do my make-up before a night out and 'Vampire' is always playing in my little sister's car when she picks me up from the airport during my monthly visits home to Queensland. All because, despite our six-year age gap and wildly different tastes in music, it's the one pop song we both want to scream along to as we hit the highway.
So on this night, I was expecting to tell Olivia that I genuinely loved her music.
I was expecting the crowd of people to close in around us with frantic force, as it does in my experience when any famous person knowingly steps into an enclosed space.
And I was expecting her to ignore the fact that my lips, teeth and tongue had suddenly turned a bright shade of purple. An inconvenient but I guess to be expected side effect of downing a 'Guts' mocktail that looked like a cross between the flesh of Twinky Winky and the skin of Barney the dinosaur.
I just wasn't expecting one of my biggest insecurities to be discussed.
Listen to Laura Brodnik recap meeting Olivia Rodrigo on The Spill.
When I walked over to meet her, Olivia was standing on a small platform under a halo of lights, emitting what can only be described as the energy of an angel placed upon a Christmas tree in a high-end department store by someone wearing gloves that cost more than my car.
"Your hair is so pretty!," she said, leaning forward to shake my hand before I could even say hello, "So so pretty! I love it."
Now, meeting famous people has become a large part of my job over the years. I'm also a jaded woman in her mid-thirties who usually has a slightly firm grasp of her emotions and knows how to conduct herself in professional social settings.
So when I tell you that in this moment my voice reached a pitch reserved only for the ears of dogs, I forgot my purple teeth (and personal space boundaries) and grabbed this unsuspecting young woman's arm and told her that I would live off her words for years to come, I need to explain a bit of the backstory that my friends, family and therapist are sick of hearing about.
For many years, I hid my very thin hair under a mop of luscious and ultra expensive hair extensions. During each hairdresser's appointment where the hair, which once grew on another human being's head, was yanked out, trimmed and attached back to my head, I noticed that my own very fine strands were getting thinner and shorter upon each visit.
Then one night, (at the premiere for the live action adaptation of The Little Mermaid, a story hooked on a woman with perfect hair, no less) my poor thin broken hair just couldn't take it anymore and the mottled extensions I was desperately clinging to began to slip out.
That night at the ripe old hour of 1am, knowing I had to film an interview with the movie's stars Melissa McCarthy and Halle Bailey the next morning, I yanked the last of the frayed extensions from my head in attempt to fix the situation. An action that only resulted in ripping out the remaining strands of natural hair I still possessed and terrifying the little mermaid with my sea-witch inspired look the next day.
(To this day, my neighbours still avoid making eye contact with me when we pass each other in the halls, and I can only imagine it's because my hair ripping induced screams still plague their nightmares.)
I avoided photos, didn't post interviews and basically fought the daily urge to wear a bag over my head for the year and half it took for my natural hair to grow back into a semi-normal state.
Now before you stalk my Instagram account or Google my name in the hopes of seeing the 'pretty' hair that spawned this article I'll save you the click and the mortification that always comes should you accidentally like a year's old grid post.
I don't have great hair.
It's perfectly respectable now, but that's not what this moment in the purple covered cake room was all about.
As I walked away from the platform holding Olivia Rodrigo, I noticed that all the people around me, whether they were fans whose ages were still in the single digits or people who remember that time Australian's turned out in full force to welcome The Beatles, everyone was experiencing a little hit of dizzying euphoria.
That's just what comes to pass when ingredients such as glitter, pop music, cupcakes and ongoing compliments are all mixed together.
It's a feeling that carried over to the first Sydney performance of the Guts World Tour the next night.
Walking into that concert was like being swept up in current of excited young fans, all complementing each other's glitter infused outfits, fishnet stockings and bedazzled t-shirts.
Fandom's that are dominated by young women, particular those who chose to build their shrines around pop stars who favour glittery leotards, are often derided and mocked by adults who don't see their musical obsession as legitimate.
In a fun plot twist, this derision is often fuelled by the same adult men who wept and then sat vigil at their laptops to buy Oasis reunion tickets. Once again feeding the myth that 'real' music can only be created by adult men who feud, and not by young women who sings bops about heartbreak.
But the truth is, a truly good pop song is the one thing that always transcends age.
Once upon a time, when I was in primary school, I noticed my teachers screaming along to the Spice Girls at a school disco, with an excitement and passion that drowned out my friends and I.
A moment I accidently recreated at the Guts tour, when the tweens sitting in front of me just smiled as my voice overtook theirs while belting out the chorus to 'Jealously Jealousy'.
That night I was also reminded that, much like a Taylor Swift concert, the best part of an Olivia Rodrigo show is the moment you get to leave it.
All because, for a moment in time, you can pretend that the outside world in the late hours of the night is a safe and welcoming place.
There are very few moments in time where you can board a train just before the clock strikes midnight and feel completely safe, because the carriage around you is only filled with content and peaceful fans still riding a high from the show they just experienced. Where you can all spill out onto the streets with a safety net snugly around you, sewn together by shimmery cowgirl hats and a thriving fandom.
Truly the world is a better place when pop music and slightly exaggerated yet welcome compliments take the wheel.
Laura Brodnik is Mamamia's Head of Entertainment and host of The Spill podcast. You can follow her on Instagram here for more entertainment news and recommendations.
Feature Image: Universal Music Australia.
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