Amazing Gracie: Pop's new superstar kicks off her Australian tour

Not long before taking the stage for the first gig on her Australian tour, Gracie Abrams appears on my Zoom, frantically whirling around her Sydney hotel room like she's in a spin cycle.
She's just after a power outlet for her laptop – 'My computer's at 2 per cent, and it's unacceptable,' she says – but as a visual metaphor for the pop star's past 12 months, the frenzied blur couldn't be more apt.
The 25-year-old toured here last January with her debut album Good Riddance, performing at mid-size venues like Sydney's Hordern Pavilion and Melbourne's The Forum. On Friday, she returned as a megastar with a sold-out audience at Qudos Bank Arena hanging onto her every word.
'It's crazy because those rooms [on the Good Riddance tour] felt so big at the time,' says Abrams, dressed casually in a black hoodie, her trademark Jane-from- Daria bob in disarray. 'I can't believe any of these people know I exist, let alone spend their money to be here. To be playing these arenas, it's mind-blowing.'
Since releasing her second album The Secret of Us last June, Abrams' profile has risen meteorically. Buoyed by hits Close To You and That's So True, a vicious kiss-off that shook the rafters as Friday's encore, the album has surpassed a billion streams and spent 45 weeks and counting near the top of ARIA's albums chart.
'It's just so f---ing bizarre,' Abrams laughs. 'I couldn't have ever anticipated this album doing what it's done. It feels like I've lived 10 lives in the past year.'
Last year, Abrams supported Taylor Swift across 50 dates of Swift's record-breaking Eras Tour, where she clearly learnt how to handle her own ever expanding stages.
At Friday's gig – dressed in a silver sequined gown, no shoes – her command was obvious, tilting between pained balladry, flirty dance-pop, and random chit-chat with fans who gifted her their own journals and scrapbooks. (Unlike other stan groups, Abrams' haven't yet settled on their own collective noun; Redditors keep trying to make 'Gracelanders' happen.)

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