beababadoobee Makes A Powerful Return to San Diego After Three Years for Her “Powerlines Tour”
Written by Gabrielle Ortiz
Photos courtesy of Connie Bolger
Graphic by Rebekah Witt
As Filipino-American Heritage Month comes to a close in October, I knew I had to end the month off with something special. Luckily, I got to celebrate the end of October by watching the Filipino-British rockstar, beabadoobee, on her “Powerlines Tour” as she stopped at Viejas Arena in San Diego.
As someone who is very proud of her heritage and culture, watching beabadoobee blow up and make it into the mainstream media has been incredibly refreshing. There is a certain pride that comes from seeing people who share your culture and background follow their dreams and sell out arenas on a world tour. I’m sure many other young Filipinos share this pride with me, as we watch her rise to be the rockstar we always knew she would be.
A fan since the debut of her first EP, I’ve seen beabadoobee perform on various stages, from the main stage of Coachella Music Festival to smaller stages. In fact, the last time she was in San Diego was in 2023 at the small, intimate venue, SOMA, that all San Diego locals know and love. Her stages may vary from big to small, but one thing that stays consistent is the voices of her crowd echoing off the walls as they sing her songs back to her. Whether you’re an old or new fan, drawn to her soft, dreamy sounds or her guitar-heavy alternative rock, she delivers a set that bounces all across her diverse discography
The night starts with Wisp, a shoegaze rock artist. Wisp sets the tone perfectly for the night with the contrasting mix of her feathery, ethereal vocals and the grunge, harsh sounds of her band. With her dove microphone, she leaves the audience entranced by her aura and siren-like sounds.
As the lights dim in the arena, beabadoobee opens her set with “Sun has Set,” which was the lead single off her newly debuted album, Pylon. The crowd immediately reflects the energy beabadoobee puts out as she walks onto the stage. Starting off with such a high-energy song full of Midwest-emo and grunge-inspired rock guitar riffs, she had the crowd jumping in the pit and screaming angrily along with her.
As the show continues, she reminds the crowd of her indie-pop roots with Beatopia hits like “10:36” and Loveworm hits like “Apple Cider.” Her set continues with very few breaks, only stopping for the many guitar switches she has throughout the show. She then dives back into her older discography with softer sounds, like “Coffee” and “Glue Song,” casting a wave of nostalgia into her audience as they swayed along and lit up the arena with their flashlights.
What I love most about beabadoobee’s music is her ability to genre-switch so flawlessly and balance the drastically different sounds from her catalog. Her setlist perfectly articulated the musical journey she has been on throughout the years and how she has not only developed creatively as an artist, but sonically as well. You can still feel the love and appreciation that she has for some of her older songs, despite how different they are from her sound now. While her music tends to differ sonically depending on the album, no song on the setlist feels out of place. She seamlessly transitions back and forth between her loud, abrasive alternative-rock sound and her gentle, slower indie-pop sound. She blends both genres using her multiple guitars—acoustic and electric—to encapsulate who she is as an artist.
The set design and visuals for this show were my favorite part of the night. There was a tall pylon tower on stage right with power lines draping over the arena ceiling. On stage left, there was a lamppost with a payphone under. Her creativity truly shines throughout the night as she uses her set design to transition into certain songs off Pylon. The set design perfectly fits the aesthetic and vision of the album, which allowed the audience to immerse themselves even deeper into the sounds of it.
When performing “Powerlines,” she starts to ascend and climb up the pylon tower and performs the song from the top. As the song progresses into the chorus with her powerful vocals, the powerline cables connected to the tower above start to glow and light the arena red. She takes a phone call at the lamppost and begins to sing the opening of “Satellite” through the receiver. She finishes the song with such high emotion as she abandons the phone, returns to the center stage to belt out with a thunderstorm unleashing its fury behind her. Nearing the end of the set, she performs “In Motion,” where the pylon tower begins to spark and explode during the powerful and raw electric guitar solo of the song.
Many of her visuals included the desert sky, driving on the road, big thunderstorms, etc., things you would see when you’re in the back of a van, looking out the window on a cross-country road trip. Her visuals perfectly reflect the inspiration of this album; from the pylon towers to the sun setting, her vision sets the scene of how she wrote a majority of this album on the road in between tours.
She ends the set in a bittersweet way with “The Way Things Go,” a song that flawlessly describes how it feels to let go and find peace in the way that life unfolds. She follows it with a performance of an acoustic unreleased song, “Lemon to the Lime.” Beforehand, she thanks her audience for “liking both sides of [her] music”: the one where she is “screaming and a pylon explodes,” and also the side where “she is wearing cat ears.” She takes on the stage, wearing cat ears with her acoustic guitar and performs a soft, love song while her audience sways along with their friends and loved ones in the crowd. Lastly, she closes the night off with “Beaches,” which was released on her last album, This Is How Tomorrow Moves.
Watching beabadoobee grow as an artist has been nothing but rewarding. As an extremely proud Filipino, there is nothing more refreshing than seeing a Filipino artist chase her dream and be unapologetic about who she is while doing so. There is truly no better way that I could celebrate the end of Filipino-American History Month than watching beabadoobee deliver an electrifying performance that solidified her roots as a modern-day rockstar.