Maggie Rogers was proof of concept in Toronto │ Exclamation!

When I interviewed Maggie Rogers in 2022, she was at the center of a rare Venn diagram that I too was preoccupied with, as someone still in the midst of transitioning from academic writing to music journalism. Here was this pop star who had already achieved viral fame before the first single from her debut album: Heard it in a past life, even came out and now also attended Divinity School at Harvard.

I missed the tour behind the second album Give upthat she was promoting at the time of our conversation, I was sitting in the bleacher seats at the Coca-Cola Coliseum last night waiting for her Don't forget me tour performance and I realized it had been over five years since I last saw Rogers: at Echo Beach in 2019, when I was still in graduate school, just a few months after seeing her performance on the tour again had seen Song exploder The podcast helped me get back to the core of what I wanted to do with my MA in Cultural Studies and gave me access to my thesis.

Who were we now that these past selves—nor the ones we were when we met over Zoom in 2022—should not be forgotten? Opener Ryan Beatty created a contemplative atmosphere. He wore jeans and a hoodie, a backwards ball cap and headphones as he sat on a tree stump at center stage to sing songs from his lush 2023 album. calico.

His casual, unobtrusive stage presence was quickly betrayed when he sang and became an everyday conveyor of the sublime. There is nothing careless about his approach. With a musicianship that can't be contained, Beatty seemed completely in the moment as he stared into space during the instrumental break in “Andromeda,” letting himself be carried away by the dreamy – and surprisingly robust – core structure of his three-piece backing band, lap steel, piano and acoustic guitar.

“Thank you Maggie for having us on this tour, it was a lot of fun,” Beatty remarked to the audience in a tone that didn’t indicate any fun, still caught up in the melancholy of the music. However, it felt completely serious when the artist said afterwards: “Um, it was really so great to be able to sit out here on a tree stump, close my eyes and sing.”

Rogers expressed a similar sentiment in the second half of her 90-plus minute performance, as she sat at the piano with incense burning and told us how she and her friend Alexa were walking through a park on the way home from dinner the night before, in the midst of someone playing Trees amped up her guitar and sang just for herself. She tells us, giggling, that that's why she started making music; She loves nothing more than singing for the sake of singing.

That was noticeable throughout the evening, but so was the sophisticated professionalism that Rogers brought to the table vocally. I was deeply impressed by how much her confidence and ability as a singer had improved since I last saw her. I'm not sure people who haven't seen her live understand that it's not just the delightful Americana rasps and warm passaggios that make her voice so convincing – Maggie Rogers can really sing.

Nowhere was this more evident than on a new R&B-inspired arrangement from Heard it in a past life Cut “Say it.” I remember reading in an old interview that something happened to Rogers during an interview SNL Performance of “Fallingwater” at the beginning of their stormy success. For lack of a better term, she gave up – and sang like never before, not knowing she had access to those notes. Now she lives in this chamber of knowledge, and it is truly something to behold.

As she launched into “Love You for a Long Time,” a popular 2019 standalone, I realized it was a sort of precursor to the sound of her latest record. The songs from can be heard in the live setting Don't forget me – she played all but one of them, which I thought was perhaps too many – revealed tighter craft and more streamlined structures. While I admittedly didn't listen to this album as often as the others, I still felt like I somehow knew all the lyrics, the short and sweet choruses pouring out of me almost unconsciously, although I appreciated the particular staying power of lines like ” Cut” was missing my hair so I can rock back and forth / Without thinking about you” or “And when we’re cheek to cheek / I feel it in my teeth.”

“On & On & On” was a highlight as Rogers was joined by saxophonist Hailey Niswanger to add a little more funk to the arrangement. Jane Fonda once called the singer-songwriter “the sexiest, most sensual dancer on stage I've ever seen,” and Rogers made it clear why. Opting for simple dresses with figure-hugging tops and flowing skirts (as well as a few mesh and sparkly capes sprinkled throughout), she was able to let the music flow freely through her body.

When a fan requested the very embodied, electrifying Give up When she highlighted “Shatter,” Rogers simply let her down by explaining that artists can access this other level of flow state by playing the same setlist every night. “This tour has felt so meaningful and big and great, and I see so many faces in the crowd that I recognize,” she said a few songs before an acoustic rendition of her breakout hit “Alaska” with a country, slowed-down arrangement that brought it into the world Don't forget me Universe.

That fateful clip of Pharrell Williams listening to “Alaska” and telling Rogers that he'd never heard anything like it before was both a prophetic blessing and a curse for the artist's work. And to her credit, she continued to try to be unique in her approach, changing styles with each new album, be it with the twangy organicism of that would eventually become a trend Don't forget me or continue off the beaten path in swaths of distortion Give up.

A lot of people (myself included – and the charts, if they even count) still love it Heard it in a past life the most, with the songs on this album reliably eliciting the biggest reaction from audiences. Rogers seems to have a good understanding that she has no control over whether or not a work hangs together as a whole; All she can do is shine her light in new directions while remaining faithful enough to be completely recognizable to those who fell in love with her on that first record.

When I saw a post on Twitter earlier this week that said something like, “When people say 'Socialism works on paper but not in real life,' that's exactly how I feel about Maggie Rogers,” I could imagine don't hold back a laugh. I wanted to love Give up And Don't forget me more than I actually did. However, they came together and made for a very cohesive, intimate live show from arguably the most personable pop star next door we have – and her appeal as an artist unfolded with such conviction. With “Alaska” she achieved the proof of concept dizzyingly quickly and her potential will be exploited again and again in the long term.

Through the varying haircuts and tonal palettes, the essence of Rogers' voice as a writer is a constant. Part of that has to do with who she is as a person, which her fans seem to recognize. Everyone thinks that in another life they could be real friends with her. They see something in her that they see in themselves. Rogers is the kind of artist who makes people want to be where she is.