Tate McRae Proves Her Pop Star Power at Sold-Out Dallas Show

If you tuned into the 2025 VMAs, Tate McRae undoubtedly stole the show in her debut.

In between dates on her Miss Possessive Tour, the Canadian pop star did an in-venue awards show performance of “Revolving Door” and “Sports Car.” Surrounded by statuesque, oiled-up muscle men in underwear, she gave sultry looks and did a back bend as she powered through “Sports Car.” She writhed around in the sand and pulled off some exhilarating dance moves. When she’s on the stage, she clearly owns it.
McRae is one of many in the fight to be the main pop girl. She’s been shouted out by Drake on “Small Town Fame,” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with Morgan Wallen on “What I Want,” featured as the musical guest on SNL and has a song on the F1 soundtrack. But Dua Lipa, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo have also owned that spotlight before. The challenge for the 22-year-old pop star is finding what makes her unique. She's captured fans with her familiarity with the 2000s influence, dialing up the sex in her tracks and letting her dance performances win over any doubters. What else is there?

In a year where Charli XCX’s tour had “brat” still going strong, global girl group KATSEYE was racking up passionate fans and HUNTR/X, the animated trio voiced by EJAE, Rei Ami and Audrey Nuna in Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters, continuing to top the Hot 100 with “Golden,” where does this leave McRae? Can she be the main pop girl? Are we done with the Britney Spears comparisons? Is she missing anything that has led us to believe her music isn’t clicking?

You can formulate theories and opinions beforehand. It will always get answered through a live performance, especially one that’s been anticipated by her Tater Tots fanbase. On Sept. 18, McRae sold out American Airlines Center with Zara Larsson as her special guest. The arena was buzzing upon arrival. Her fans are the coolest dressers, some in animal print and jerseys, others in runway-worthy fits with cowgirl boots. They checked out the Neutrogena pop-up, a partnership with McRae as she’s the face of the brand’s latest Hydro Boost campaign.

McRae is a pop star for the smartphone era. From where we were sitting, a Tate McRae show is all about being seen, taking photos and videos from your seat with the stage and the “Tate: Dallas” as your background. The FOMO-inducing content for your followers to live vicariously through you only picks up in frequency once she hits the stage.

The first throwback to Spears came in Zara Larsson covering “Gimme More,” which was stunning. By this point in her performance, she’s been crushing it through often-praised live vocals and incredible choreography. She did almost an hour, performing songs such as “Lush Life” (it still feels like summer in Texas) and “On My Love.” “Midnight Sun” and “Symphony” got huge sing-alongs, making a case for Larsson to one day have a headlining tour of her own. She made sure to let us know that her new album, Midnight Sun, is coming out on Sept. 26.

When Janet Jackson’s “All for You” and then later Charli XCX’s “party 4 u” came on before McRae’s arrival, it got us thinking about how scary it must be to be compared to artists before her and why certain generations favor them. McRae built her fame as an acclaimed dancer before music, winning third place on the thirteenth season of So You Think You Can Dance. She’s very much a Gen Z icon, but has been criticized for making tedious music and getting ridiculed for reading lyrics off her phone while covering someone’s song.

Perceived notions aside, it didn’t matter to the thousands who screamed as soon as the screen showed a video of McRae in a director’s chair, looking at various monitors of her fans waving before cutting to her striking different poses on the ground. She opened confidently with “Miss Possessive,” looking fierce in a black outfit with heels on. After “2 Hands,” she stopped to introduce herself and welcome us to her world tour. “I love you, Dallas. Are you guys ready to sing, dance and have the best night with me tonight?” McRae said.
If you thought her VMAs performance was sizzling hot, McRae did about an hour and a half of that in Dallas. Throughout the night, she would work the stage and the camera, following her everywhere, including behind the scenes, which was equally provocative and empowering. The catchy “Guilty Conscience” led into “Purple Lace Bra,” an early favorite of ours, where she came from backstage in a glow-in-the-dark top and emerged from the stairs to the stage. Almost every song had a break for some mind-blowing choreography: one had captivating pole dancing for “uh oh,” and she took the lead for “Dear God” to express her emotion.

McRae moved to a smaller B-stage in the back of the arena, where she connected with her fans who watched from afar. “I just wanted to say thank you to every person who showed up tonight,” she said. “I love you so much and I’m so grateful for every single one of you, you guys make my entire life so thank you.”

She thinks of Dallas fondly, reminding fans of when she came to Texas last year. She talked about releasing her album So Close to What this year. “It’s very special to me. I wrote so many songs for it. I feel like songwriting has always been my type of therapy of what the fuck is going on in my life,” she said, adding turning 22 recently was a “really weird age to turn because I felt like I was supposed to be an adult for the first time but also didn’t know how to be one, so I was really confused.”
All of this openness led to the idea of nostalgia, sharing with people who didn’t know that she started singing on YouTube when she was 13 years old. This section of the show, with McRae playing the piano for her moodier songs, featured her performing some of the original songs she wrote back then. There were plenty who knew them, singing word for word of “You Broke Me First.” We caught two fans highly engaged, facing each other while holding hands, singing her lyrics like it was a spiritual experience.

The final half featured more of the uptempo dance pop tracks. It’s probably what most fans will remember as being the best parts of the show, full of flair and playfulness, that had everyone up out of their seats and dancing. After “Exes” and “bloodonmyhands” (which we really would’ve loved a Flo Milli surprise), McRae spotted a fan who went viral on TikTok for “dancing his life away.” “Oh my God, you’re an icon! You’re a king and I love you!” she said. We’re amazed she spotted him out of everyone in the pit.

Under the ambitious creativity of Sean Bankhead, a highly sought-after choreographer, McRae and her dancers showed finesse and thrilling precision. She’s a professional dancer after all, pulling out pirouettes, catwalks, hip-hop dances from the ‘00s and many more. “Revolving Door” live in Dallas topped the VMAs, with dancers holding door frames, which had her sitting down by herself in the front of the stage after she was finished singing, inviting in the cheers and shouts from the audience.

For the last set of songs—“It's OK, I'm OK,” “Just Keep Watching” and “Sports Car”—it felt like a live recording of her music videos if TRL was still a thing. In “Just Keep Watching,” she was in the center of several cameras that projected 360-degree images in rapid succession. “Sports Car” was full of seduction, bringing on a white chair to do a scorpion kick-up to add to the steaminess of the performance.
By 10:30 p.m., white confetti shot from the stage and into the air, falling down as she concluded with the addictive “Greedy,” considered her breakthrough hit that many now know by name. McRae expressed her love by throwing hearts at fans and taking a bow with her dancers.

As she continues to develop herself, the question isn't if she's missing anything. Rather, what isn't missing from Tate McRae? She’s got the streaming numbers, the look and the talent to back up what a modern pop star should be. But it seems as though some people are hellbent on suggesting she can't create the same cultural movement as Spears did. They still want to think that McRae’s music has been done before by Spears, Christina Aguilera, Nelly Furtado and The Pussycat Dolls.

Why not embrace the mystery of Tate McRae while we wait for her next big moment?