Sparks flew as Filipina British artist beabadoobee performed for her “The Powerlines” tour at the KIA Forum on Oct. 21. Throughout the night, fans were treated to a mix of soft bedroom melodies and energizing rock instrumentals.
Originating from London, United Kingdom, beabadoobee began making music in 2017, with her first song being “Coffee.” However, it wasn’t until 2020 that she blew up on TikTok, with a sample of “Coffee” appearing all over the platform.
Concert attendee Dayana Marmolejo recalls her first encounter with the song being during quarantine, remembering how it was dismissed as a joke.
“People started trolling with [“Coffee”], but I kind of see the vision. No one saw it but me,” Marmolejo said.
Multiple years later, Marmolejo is still an avid listener of beabadoobee’s music.
Since her breakthrough into the music industry, beabadoobee has released four albums, with her newest album “Pylon” being at the center of the tour. “Pylon” places a heavy emphasis on energetic rock instrumentals, with songs throughout the album putting the guitar playing of beabadoobee and her band at the forefront of the songs.
The energy in the album is seen in “Memories,” a song with lyrics about beabadoobee’s nostalgic memories with a specific person. In combination with a layer of upbeat instrumentals, the audience imitated the cheerful timbre of the song, singing out the lyrics throughout.
Although the song is about a specific person, fan Jalaena Alcala references it with her friends.
“I really like ‘Memories’ because it’s just a happy, nice song,” Alcala said. “I use it [for] friendship a lot. I think about my friends when I listen to it.”
The vibrant intensity of beabadoobee’s music was also reflected in the stage she performed on. The stage brings the audience to the middle of a road, with only a power line and telephone nearby. Throughout the night, beabadoobee would interact with the props to amplify the emotion conveyed in her music, whether it be her climbing the power line tower or using the telephone to create a distorted sound.
Attendee Jacob Rodriguez said the stage was a step up from her previous tours’ stages.
“She did a lot more than last year when I saw her,” Rodriguez said. “I really liked the power set, how she got up on the tower and how the sparks came off of it.”
Though the intense energy is embedded into many of the songs, the album also contains soft, dreamy vocals that initially pulled fans like Alexa Marmolejo in. Like her sister, Dayana Marmolejo, she said she was also a massive fan of the album, but in a different way.
“I was also geeking out, but then I was [also] caressing my window,” said Marmolejo when recalling her initial reaction to the album. “That’s how you know it’s good.”
One of these songs was “Satellite,” a track that lays off the upbeat instrumentals in exchange for a powerful vocal delivery.
“The meaning behind it and the lyrics mean a lot to me,” Rodriguez said. “The lyrics where she goes ‘I’ll split in two, sing to the moon’ I think are really deep and mean a lot to me.”
Edited by Justin Ha