Rex Orange County makes debut performance for Pony tour

Jenna Peterson
Staff Writer

This past Sunday evening the Palace Theater in St. Paul hosted Rex Orange County for the first time with The Pony Tour. Alex O’Connor, mostly known as his stage name Rex Orange County, is a British artist who released his first album, Bcos U Will Never B Free, in 2016 and has continued to release two more albums since then, Apricot Princess (2017) and Pony (2019).

Two of my friends and I left Sunday afternoon for the concert and stood outside the venue for two hours to ensure that we got as close to the stage as possible, and the long wait in the cold weather was worth it. 

Alex started the show with a song off the new album, “10/10”, which talks about the personal struggles he has went through and although he isn’t the best version of himself right now, he’s working on it one day at a time. He then continued with “Laser Lights” and “Face to Face”, both on the Pony album, to hype fans up. Even though the new album had been out for a few months, Alex made sure to play songs off of Apricot Princess, including “Never Enough”, “Happiness”, and “4 Seasons”. Going into the night, there were a few songs I expected to hear from both Apricot Princess and Pony, and I was lucky enough to have all of those songs played. Some of my favorite songs that were played were, “Television/So Far So Good”, “Sunflower”, “Never Had the Balls”, “Best Friend”, “Always”, and “Loving is Easy”, all from Pony and Apricot Princess. All of these songs made the crowd energetic and ready to party, which is exactly what happened. The only song off of Bcos U Will Never B Free that Alex played was, “Corduroy Dreams”, which I was surprised was added to the set list. 

Even though this show was general admission and I fully expected to have no personal space, some people still lacked the decency to give me and other people some space. I did have a few people pushing onto me and leaning on me, but after a few songs I was able to move slightly away and enjoy the show even more. The next time Rex Orange County is in the cities, I will be right back in the pit.

Header photo courtesy of Rex Orange County’s Facebook page.