Olivia Dean sells out two nights at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena

Olivia Dean has sold out two nights at the 14,000-capacity Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, the first stop on her Australia and New Zealand tour — just one year after her last Melbourne show at the 2,000-capacity Forum.

The Guardian's review of the opening night describes "a powerful, affirming night with a pop star at the height of her powers" — a performance the reviewer calls "a fun but sincere demonstration of the power of pop to get at what love's all about."

How big has Olivia Dean become?

According to the review, the singer "has been everywhere this past year": performing on Saturday Night Live, winning best new artist at the Grammys and an armful of Brit awards, and featuring on the soundtrack to the latest Bridget Jones movie.

Her album The Art of Loving has become inescapable even for listeners who never pressed play. The reviewer notes hearing its songs — the No 1 single Man I Need, the multi-platinum-selling Nice to Each Other and So Easy (To Fall in Love) — in coffee shops, in TikTok videos of girls cleaning their houses and in Instagram stories of newlyweds' first dances.

What makes her voice connect?

The review is specific about the source of her appeal: "It's so easy to fall in love with Olivia Dean."

On her singing, the reviewer writes: "There's something addictive about her rich, treacly voice. It's universal, the kind of rare substance you want to give your grandma a bump of because you know she'd enjoy it just as much."

That universality, the review argues, explains the leap from the Forum's 2,000 seats to two packed nights at Rod Liver Arena's 14,000 within a single year — one of the fastest venue escalations a rising pop act can make in Australia.

Where can audiences see her next?

The Australia and New Zealand tour continues until 17 October.

If the Melbourne opening sets the pattern, the remaining dates promise a show that treats love — its ease, its effort, its rituals — as material for big-tent pop rather than confession-booth intimacy, delivered by a singer the review places squarely at the height of her powers.