She’s a singer, she’s a dancer, she’s a songwriter. She’s Tate McRae and she’s the latest superwoman of the pop world. At least, that’s the intended takeaway of the Canadian star’s Miss Possessive Tour, a summer blockbuster orchestrated to show off just how many talents the 22-year-old does, in fact, possess.
Landing at the United Center on Friday night, the sold-out show flaunted all of McRae’s virtuosities across 90 minutes, whether it was the incredible body movements that made her a third-place finalist on “So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation” in 2016 or the emotional bedroom pop that pulled in a generation of young fans on YouTube beginning in 2017 when she was just a preteen. Viral hits like “You Broke Me First” soon led to a contract with RCA Records and spun into pop gold like 2023’s “Greedy,” which brings McRae to her first arena tour now, in support of her new album, “So Close to What.”
Yet, it took a lot of hard work to get there, a fact that the multitalented artist doesn’t want you to forget, down to emphasizing the point in the night’s set design. Coming off like a construction site with giant cranes, exposed beams and long catwalks, it symbolized what McRae has already assembled and is still building toward. It also worked as a large industrial playground for McRae, her two-piece live band and eight additional gravity-defying dancers to take over. The collective used every inch of it, sashaying down the runways to the beat of pop banger “Guilty Conscience,” swinging from metal bars during “No I’m Not In Love” and launching into impossible dance breakdowns and splits after “Revolving Door” that rightfully earned the singer her social media nickname, Tate McSlay.
The only problem: It wasn’t totally original. McRae’s high kicks and backbends are stunning, but they are nothing we haven’t seen before from greats like J.Lo, Beyoncé and Britney Spears. Many have hailed McRae as this generation’s Spears — but it begs the question, do we really need a copy at this point, or just a comeback from the OG?
Opener Zara Larsson’s Y2K look and sound on songs like “Crush” (released this same day) were also indicative of this throwback pull. The Swedish pop star went so far as to cover Spears’ “Gimme More” alongside hits like “Lush Life” and new tracks from her forthcoming album, “Midnight Sun,” out next month. But her set also felt a bit passé for 2025.
Like Larsson, McRae relied on a number of old pop tropes. Her half-dressed lingerie look, constant suggestive doe eyes at a video camera that relentlessly followed along, the floor fans that kept her goddess hair flowing, the pole dance routine for “Uh Oh” — we’ve been there already. Songs like “Sports Car” and “Just Keep Watching” (from the recent “F1” movie) bathed in effects were also an old trick to put more focus on the choreography than the singing. Without much variation from these tried-and-true formulas in the show, it grew flat after a while and made McRae seem older and more dated than she actually is.
And maybe that’s OK for her fans — the constant screaming and impassioned sing-alongs for “Purple Lace Bra” and the person on the floor who kept holding up a “T8 MCRAE” Illinois license plate were all in support of Team Tate. Many are planning on coming back for Round 2 in October, as they loudly affirmed when McRae asked who she would see again at United Center this fall.
The thing about the pop music machine, though, is that it’s a fickle business and you have to wonder if McRae will get caught in the undertow of its next wave if she can’t rise above being tagged as a facsimile. And that would be such a waste of her abundant natural talents that just need to find more of their own identity.
McRae came close to this realization in the third act of the show, a section in which she appeared solo in an elegant black dress, perched on a stand-alone circle platform at the back of the venue, an intimate vibe that made her recall the time she played Schubas “for 100 people” in January 2020.
This part of the night was the singer at her most raw and original, where she stripped back the sultry production to zero in on her songwriting abilities on ballads like “Greenlight” and “You Broke Me First,” the viral hit that first drew in her flock of fans. “I started this whole singing thing on YouTube when I was 13. I had a channel called ‘Create with Tate,’ where I’d post original songs every single Friday,” she said, then testing the “Day Ones” with a keyboard medley of her earliest tracks like “One Day” and “Rubberband.” The crowd knew them all and dutifully sang along. “We’re so proud of you!” screamed one person.
While McRae has now firmly planted herself near the top of the pop echelon, you can sense her roots may be calling again. Talking about her latest album before launching into the song “Nostalgia,” she shared, “I’ve been writing a lot about things moving really fast. It’s felt like life is slipping out of my fingers a bit. I just turned 22 in July … and there’s this nostalgia … it’s such a weird feeling I get all the time.” McRae is still so young that this past isn’t too far in the rearview mirror, and hopefully it will help her find a strong future, too.
SET LIST
Miss Possessive
No I’m Not In Love
2 Hands
Guilty Conscience
Purple Lace Bra
Like I Do
Uh Oh
Dear God
Siren Sounds
Greenlight
Nostalgia
That Way / Rubberband / One Day / Feel Like S—
You Broke Me First
Run For The Hills
Exes
Bloodonmyhands
She’s All I Wanna Be
Revolving Door
It’s OK I’m OK
Encore:
Just Keep Watching
Sports Car
Greedy