(Orlando FL, The Beacham) Beabadoobee ('Bea') performed before a sold-out Orlando Beacham venue on Thursday November 3rd, much to the delight of nearly 1,200 fans singing along and clinging to her every word and move.
In all honesty, it wasn't until recently that I knew who Beabadoobee was. I mean, I'm a 46-year-old dad. But in the weeks leading up to tonight's show, I had listened to my 14- and 17-year-old daughters playing the entirety of Beabadoobee 'Beatopia' album while they would do their homework in the evenings, learning that my 14-year-old's favorite song of Bea's is 'See You Soon.' With my daughter being the most knowledgeable about this artist, I recommended that she be the photographer for tonight's show.
My 14-year-old and I headed down to the venue and saw the line out front. With Beacham being a standing room venue, your position during the concert would be determined at a first-come first-served level, and my understanding is that the line to enter the venue, which was composed predominantly of teenagers, had been queued up since noon for this show that was scheduled to start at 8p. We parked our car up the road and headed toward the building's front doors. As luck would have it, we were able to run into Beabadoobee just before the show! In this aspect, we had an extremely unique and personal perspective with this artist. She was EXTREMELY friendly in person, and she was laughing and speaking with my 14-year-old, and was genuinely excited when she found out my daughter would be photographing her concert. We talked about Filipino food, and she seemed interested to hear more when I started talking about some of the nearby Filipino restaurants. As the show was about to start, we parted ways with the singer and my daughter had a memory to last her a lifetime!
As we walked away from Bea, my daughter commented about Bea's shirt. My daughter went on to inform me that Bea was super fan-centric, and that the shirt Bea was wearing was actually created by one of her fans. Further, Bea was known to sport these fan-created outfits at her shows, and even share pics of her wearing these outfits on social media. So in the course of just a few minutes, I was completely drawn in and intrigued by this mysterious artist.
It had been a few years since I had last been in this specific venue. Although Bea's management had approved us for tickets, there was confusion at the venue-level regarding my ability to enter the building with my camera equipment. For this reason, we missed out on being able to review Lowertown, which was disappointing as we had read lots of positive feedback on this band duo. Walking into the venue, I saw a PACKED show floor, and could not see an accessible path to get myself or my daughter up to the pit area directly in front of the stage from which we were approved to photograph. We needed to get venue security to open up a path for us through the densely-packed crowd of mainly high-school and college-aged students.
From my unexposed observation, Beabadoobee is not into the wild stage antics of jumping off speakers, or throwing around her instruments. No explicit dancing (no dancing at all from her, actually). Not even any real interaction with the crowd in between songs. But, as my 14-year-old strongly pointed out and defended: Beabadoobee is about her music. When my daughter told me this, it resonated within me that Bea didn't do any crazy vocals, or impromptu ad-libbing. She was there to perform her music. Nearly note for note, I heard on stage all of the songs I had heard my 14-year-old playing over the past few weeks in our home. Vocally, when Bea performed live, it sounded almost identical to the vocal tracks she had recorded on her albums. Reflecting through the years of live concerts I had attended, I'd be hard-pressed to identify any other performers who sounded so similar to the sound immortalized on their albums like Bea did.
As demonstrated during tonight's concert, my daughter's fascination stemmed from the broadness of Bea's musicality. In some songs such as Apple Cider and Cologne, Bea heavily rocked out to the guitar-backing accompaniment of her band. But in other songs Bea exposed her tender side in other songs such as the acoustically performed 'Ripples' during her 3-song encore. While she was not performing any outlandish stunts while onstage, she commanded an extremely strong presence amongst her fans in attendance, who seemingly knew every lyric to every song.
I look forward to her coming back through central Florida someday in the near future, hopefully. I would gladly check out Beabadoobee again, and would strongly recommend this performer / this tour to our younger audience. Definitely check this one out!
Write-up: Bailey Guinigundo
Photos: Kaylee Guinigundo
Setlist:
1. 10:36
2. Apple Cider
3. Care
4. Fairy Song
5. Worth It
6. Together
7. Charlie Brown
8. The Perfect Pair
9. Sunny Day
10. Yoshimi, Forest, Magdalene
11. See You Soon
12. Don't Get the Deal
13. Sorry
14. She Plays Bass
15. Back to Mars
16. Last Day on Earth
17. Dye It Red
18. Talk
(Encore)
19. Coffee
20. Ripples
21. Cologne
In all honesty, it wasn't until recently that I knew who Beabadoobee was. I mean, I'm a 46-year-old dad. But in the weeks leading up to tonight's show, I had listened to my 14- and 17-year-old daughters playing the entirety of Beabadoobee 'Beatopia' album while they would do their homework in the evenings, learning that my 14-year-old's favorite song of Bea's is 'See You Soon.' With my daughter being the most knowledgeable about this artist, I recommended that she be the photographer for tonight's show.
My 14-year-old and I headed down to the venue and saw the line out front. With Beacham being a standing room venue, your position during the concert would be determined at a first-come first-served level, and my understanding is that the line to enter the venue, which was composed predominantly of teenagers, had been queued up since noon for this show that was scheduled to start at 8p. We parked our car up the road and headed toward the building's front doors. As luck would have it, we were able to run into Beabadoobee just before the show! In this aspect, we had an extremely unique and personal perspective with this artist. She was EXTREMELY friendly in person, and she was laughing and speaking with my 14-year-old, and was genuinely excited when she found out my daughter would be photographing her concert. We talked about Filipino food, and she seemed interested to hear more when I started talking about some of the nearby Filipino restaurants. As the show was about to start, we parted ways with the singer and my daughter had a memory to last her a lifetime!
As we walked away from Bea, my daughter commented about Bea's shirt. My daughter went on to inform me that Bea was super fan-centric, and that the shirt Bea was wearing was actually created by one of her fans. Further, Bea was known to sport these fan-created outfits at her shows, and even share pics of her wearing these outfits on social media. So in the course of just a few minutes, I was completely drawn in and intrigued by this mysterious artist.
It had been a few years since I had last been in this specific venue. Although Bea's management had approved us for tickets, there was confusion at the venue-level regarding my ability to enter the building with my camera equipment. For this reason, we missed out on being able to review Lowertown, which was disappointing as we had read lots of positive feedback on this band duo. Walking into the venue, I saw a PACKED show floor, and could not see an accessible path to get myself or my daughter up to the pit area directly in front of the stage from which we were approved to photograph. We needed to get venue security to open up a path for us through the densely-packed crowd of mainly high-school and college-aged students.
From my unexposed observation, Beabadoobee is not into the wild stage antics of jumping off speakers, or throwing around her instruments. No explicit dancing (no dancing at all from her, actually). Not even any real interaction with the crowd in between songs. But, as my 14-year-old strongly pointed out and defended: Beabadoobee is about her music. When my daughter told me this, it resonated within me that Bea didn't do any crazy vocals, or impromptu ad-libbing. She was there to perform her music. Nearly note for note, I heard on stage all of the songs I had heard my 14-year-old playing over the past few weeks in our home. Vocally, when Bea performed live, it sounded almost identical to the vocal tracks she had recorded on her albums. Reflecting through the years of live concerts I had attended, I'd be hard-pressed to identify any other performers who sounded so similar to the sound immortalized on their albums like Bea did.
As demonstrated during tonight's concert, my daughter's fascination stemmed from the broadness of Bea's musicality. In some songs such as Apple Cider and Cologne, Bea heavily rocked out to the guitar-backing accompaniment of her band. But in other songs Bea exposed her tender side in other songs such as the acoustically performed 'Ripples' during her 3-song encore. While she was not performing any outlandish stunts while onstage, she commanded an extremely strong presence amongst her fans in attendance, who seemingly knew every lyric to every song.
I look forward to her coming back through central Florida someday in the near future, hopefully. I would gladly check out Beabadoobee again, and would strongly recommend this performer / this tour to our younger audience. Definitely check this one out!
Write-up: Bailey Guinigundo
Photos: Kaylee Guinigundo
Setlist:
1. 10:36
2. Apple Cider
3. Care
4. Fairy Song
5. Worth It
6. Together
7. Charlie Brown
8. The Perfect Pair
9. Sunny Day
10. Yoshimi, Forest, Magdalene
11. See You Soon
12. Don't Get the Deal
13. Sorry
14. She Plays Bass
15. Back to Mars
16. Last Day on Earth
17. Dye It Red
18. Talk
(Encore)
19. Coffee
20. Ripples
21. Cologne
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