A crisp October evening set the scene for musician Beabadoobee to grace the Oakland Arena. The Powerlines Tour showcased her fourth studio album Pylon, an indie rock record evolved beyond the ghost of her bedroom pop past.<\/p>\n
Rising shoegaze sweetheart Wisp opened the show at 8 p.m. Born Natalie Lu, the 22-year-old performed a strikingly stylized culmination of alternative rock. Raised in the Bay Area, Lu called this \u201chometown show\u201d her favorite stop on the tour.<\/p>\n
As far as \u201cvibe matches\u201d go, Lu\u2019s set was the perfect prelude for Beabadoobee\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n
Beatrice Laus, a Filipino-British singer, unassumingly adopted the stage name Beabadoobee almost a decade ago. She went viral in 2020 when a rapper sampled her bedroom pop track \u201cCoffee,\u201d and has since forged her own \u201cbubblegrunge\u201d genre.<\/p>\n
Her latest album perfectly exemplifies her distinctive blend of pop rock with a dreamy retro affect.<\/p>\n
Laus began her show at 9 p.m. with the high-energy \u201cSun Has Set.\u201d Her meticulous set design included a towering pylon structure with a large screen appearing and strings of light extending delicately into the audience. Behind the band, a screen transported the audience to different atmospheres that complemented her music.<\/p>\n
Her effectively elaborate set and pertinent lighting brought a quality of true performance to the show.<\/p>\n
If anything could have upstaged its ingenuity, it was Beabadoobee\u2019s charming and infectious smile. Her animated expressions accompanied by her chromatic electric guitars were the ideal instrument for her playful lyrics.<\/p>\n
Laus played older tracks, including \u201c10:36\u201d and \u201cApple Cider,\u201d that allured audiences along the way. After encouraging the crowd to shout the lyrics to \u201cCare,\u201d she transitioned into her debut song, the aforementioned \u201cCoffee,\u201d evoking nostalgia for the OGs.<\/p>\n
The fervent crowd members eagerly turned their flashlights on for her songs, leaning toward the indie sound. As Laus sang \u201cPictures of Us,\u201d flashlights across the venue turned bright pink as audience members covered their phones with colored paper as a charming fan project.<\/p>\n
Laus switched seamlessly between her slow, dreamy tracks and those reliant on upbeat rock and roll instrumentals. Transitioning between songs such as \u201cMemories\u201d from Pylon and the 2023 hit \u201cGlue Song,\u201d she showcased a masterful ability of tonal adaptation.<\/p>\n
Many tracks from Pylon clearly juxtaposed with the ethereality of her older catalog, instead focusing on heavy drums and electric guitar. Laus supported her vocals with adept guitar skills, in addition to her proficient backing band.<\/p>\n
Her mellifluous voice serendipitously coupled with grungy guitar outros.<\/p>\n
For \u201cPowerlines,\u201d Laus climbed onto the stage\u2019s powerline structure as the lighting turned to a half-red, half-blue haze. Her bandmate\u2019s incredible guitar solos underscored the distinct pop-rock territory her music has now entered.<\/p>\n
She invited the audience to jump up and down during \u201cWrite me a Letter\u201d and flaunted her vocal range with \u201cSatellite.\u201d Laus\u2019s commitment to lyrical angst solidified her idiosyncratic grungy sound.<\/p>\n
After a run of songs from Pylon, she continued her return to old favorites with \u201cTalk\u201d and \u201cCologne.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe Plays Bass\u201d was arguably the standout of the night, spotlighting the audience singalong. \u201cIn Motion,\u201d on the other hand, brought the focus back to Laus and to the sway of her hips while she worked toward the night\u2019s conclusion.<\/p>\n
For the encore, Beabadoobee played a beautiful acoustic version of \u201cThe Way Things Go\u201d as the audience joined in. Her tongue-in-cheek demeanor softened the boldness of the track.<\/p>\n
She also debuted a promisingly sprightly unreleased number, \u201cI Didn\u2019t Mean That,\u201d and ended her concert with the refreshing \u201cBeaches.\u201d<\/p>\n
If there was one negative to the show, it would be the minimal crowd work. Although Laus shared more of Pylon\u2019s story before the encore, a noticeable lack of banter between songs blended them ambiguously. Her guitar-driven sound and repetitive lyrics, usually endearing, became inefficacious.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the exuberant crowd at the Oakland Arena experienced a chimerical opener and a sonic treat from Laus. Beabadoobee\u2019s aesthetic cohesion, vocal skill and charming set list thus made for a long yet stellar night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A crisp October evening set the scene for musician Beabadoobee to grace the Oakland Arena. The Powerlines Tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[197498,197497,184,197489,197491,190435,16221,197501,164127,197493,115250,197499,197490,143,72842,145,144,58747,197495,197492,197496,7051,197494,20545,197500],"class_list":["post-513144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-197498","tag-apple-cider","tag-bay-area","tag-beabadoobee","tag-beatrice-kristi-ilejay-laus","tag-bedroom-pop","tag-coffee","tag-cologne","tag-dream-pop","tag-glue-song","tag-indie-rock","tag-memories","tag-natalie-r-lu","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-arena","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-powerlines","tag-pylon","tag-shoegaze","tag-sun-has-set","tag-talk","tag-the-way-things-go","tag-wisp","tag-write-me-a-letter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}