Standing atop her drum set, King Princess flashed a grin as she unleashed a raspy belt. Dressed in a white tank and black leather grommeted pants, her shaggy signature haircut completing the look, she claimed the T-Mobile Stage as her own.
Friday marked the kickoff of her Girl Violence tour — her first Austin show in six years. Against the backdrop of a desert highway billboard, she danced with abandon and playfully gyrated her hips, channeling Ginuwine’s “Pony” with a fun, flirty energy.
King Princess delivered a masterclass in sapphic romance. Her cheeky, unapologetically queer style radiated through the set. Between songs, she teased the crowd — asking who liked pussy to a chorus of cheers — before grabbing her band mate by the neck for a quick kiss and ripping into a bass-heavy “I Feel Pretty.” She later slung on her green guitar and dove into a brief but spirited solo.
Throughout the night, she wove vulnerability into the spectacle, declaring her love for women while moving between soaring belts and hushed confessions. In the wrenching “Girls,” she fused acid rock grit with bedroom-pop intimacy, kneeling at the stage’s edge to embody the lyric “Bring me to my knees.” Behind her, visuals shifted to images of scantily clad women snapping photos of each other, amplifying the song’s intimacy.
The set lightened with her breakout single “1950.” The crowd roared as she delivered the 2018 anthem, spitting its defiant opening line: “I hate it when dudes try to chase me / But I love it when you try to save me.”
She closed with “Fantastic,” a track featured in Netflix’s “Arcane,” as the screen displayed cartoon breasts bouncing in King Princess tees — a cheeky, over-the-top sendoff befitting her playful, unfiltered artistry.
