Fans adorned in brightly colored outfits and bold eye makeup packed First Avenue on Wednesday. Their energy was joyful and carefree as they waited for performances by drag performer Shea Couleé and Australian pop star Betty Who. Fans were eager to utilize a photobooth provided by Betty’s tour, and their excited chatter filled the space as they took photos together and compared outfits before the show.
Shea Couleé is the season 5 winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars and a fan favorite throughout the franchise. The crowd shrieked with delight and welcomed her with encouraging screams of “Work it, bitch!” as she hit the stage with new single “New Phone Who Dis?”
She commanded the attention of the crowd as she strutted across the stage, with her two backup dancers perfectly in sync. Shea chatted with the crowd multiple times throughout her set and fans hung on to her every word. She declared her love for Minneapolis, saying that it was the first city outside of Chicago to book her for shows before her All Stars win, and reminisced about her time at Twin Cities Pride in 2013. She even connected with fans over their favorite queens on the current season of Drag Race, naming different queens and encouraging audience screams of support.
She closed her set with the upbeat “Your Name,” which she mentioned was the first song she’d written the majority of and had needed reassurance that it was any good at first. The overwhelming cheers from the audience provided all the further validation she could ask for.
Excitement was at an all-time high by the time Betty Who took the stage. She began her set with a controlled, but chaotic frenzy as she and her two backup dancers flung their bodies across the stage in rhythm with each other. The trio’s joy was evident as they spent the majority of her set dancing and coyly interacting with each other, with infectious smiles never leaving their faces. Their movement was cathartic and their struts and spins gave the crowd permission to follow suit and let loose themselves, from jumping and clapping to swaying and bobbing their heads to the beat. Betty’s voice was impressively clear and strong despite all of her movement, and fans were desperate for more.
The Sydney-born pop star had an upbeat and playful demeanor throughout her entire performance, but she also wasn’t afraid to get vulnerable with the crowd. After performing “Big,” a song off the titled album, she expressed that she connected with a certain fan in the audience and the interaction brought tears to her eyes. She further explained that she had initially wrote the song for herself, but later realized it was really meant for others. Her adoring fans screamed the words to every song, which came from albums throughout her whole career from 2013’s The Movement all the way to her latest release Big.
Betty Who is on tour in promotion of Big until April 1, where she’ll play her final show in Los Angeles.
Shea Couleé
Betty Who
