LIVE REVIEW: Tate McRae – Fortitude Music Hall

Tate McRae is a superstar. But that isn’t something that the world doesn’t know by now as the Canadian singer, songwriter, and dancer has dominated the charts, hit viral status multiple times, and successfully sold out her debut headlining Australian tour in four minutes. It’s no small feat for any artist, but especially someone who has only just celebrated her 19th birthday, and released her debut album.

After kicking off the sold out run of dates in Perth, the pandemonium was an all time high as she rolled into Brisbane for what quickly became one of her favourite shows to-date. The line to get into the venue wrapped around multiple blocks, and was successfully the biggest queue I had ever seen at the Fortitude Music Hall. With fans quickly packing out the venue, by the time Jack Gray walked out onto the stage for the support slot, he was playing to a full-house who were very excited to get to know him. With signs illuminated on their phone screens saying “Respectfully, you’re hot” and “I broke up with my toxic ex on Monday…”, it was safe to say they were immediately into him. Opening with ‘Fools’ from his debut EP ‘Nights Like These’ he intimately set the tone with just him, a guitar, a keyboard, and some backing tracks. Bouncing between the different instruments, he performed previously released tracks like ‘Selfish’, ‘One Step Back’, ‘Bullet’ and ‘I Got 3’. But he also performed some new tracks including the catchy ‘Two Cents’ and ‘Alien’, which got a bit of a giggle after he directly introduced it as, “this song is about fucking aliens”.

With the crowd successfully warmed up, the “Tate” chants started, and the screams became deafening as the venue went pitch black and the buzzing of synths sounded as she ran out onto the stage for opening track ‘stupid’. With three dancers surrounding her, they went straight into the angsty pop-rock anthem ‘what would you do?’, and the singalong’s didn’t stop there. Every song in the set was met with high screams and passionate singalong’s which made the show feel like a greatest hits show, and in some ways it was. Beginning with older songs like ‘r u ok’, ‘all my friends are fake’ and ‘bad ones’, she took everyone back to the start of her musical journey. Her first ever song ‘One Day’ followed which saw her sitting at the edge of the stage and watching everyone scream it back to her with their phone lights in the air which brought her to tears. Exclaiming that it was the loudest crowd she had ever heard on the tour to-date, she seemed to be extremely moved and taken aback by the warmness of the crowd. They continued to make her emotional with songs like ‘feel like shit’, ‘chaotic’, and the last minute addition of ‘boy x’ becoming special moments.

Leaning into newer songs like ‘You’, ‘don’t come back’ and ‘she’s all i wanna be’, the energy shifted and the choreography came out in full swing. After saying good night to the crowd, the “Tate” chants began again, and she walked back out with her dancers in tow for THE song, ‘you broke me first’.

The in-sync energy between Tate, her band, and her dancers was extremely professional and impressive that if you didn’t know any better then you would think they’ve been touring for years. But in reality, this is their first year touring the world, and for the full hour they were on stage I was floored. It was a production that was ready to be taken to arenas, and next time she’s in Australia she’s going to elevate it to a new level of polish that is going to continue to floor us.

Check out the full gallery captured by Matt Pettigrew BELOW;