Indie-pop artist beabadoobee wows enamored fans with a set of familiar hits and new songs with support from Christian Leave and BLACKSTARKIDS.
Kansas City group BLACKSTARKIDS fires up the crowd early with a high-energy set of hip-hop and indie rock. The core of the group is The Babe Gabe, TyFaizon, and Deiondre. They have been working together for several years with four album releases. They open with the songs “Sounds Like Fun” and “JIMMY NEUTRON” which finds the trio running and bouncing wildly about the stage and playing up to the audience at every chance. How Deiondre can play the guitar and sing while bouncing like a wild man is amazing. They are a lot of fun and have the crowd fully engaged.
They follow that with “Frankie Muniz” from Whatever, Man that has TyFaizon working the crowd up front. That is a song that got them plenty of social media attention. The set tonight draws heavily from their recent 2021 release Puppies Forever including songs “JIMMY NEUTRON,” “PALS,” “PISS DRUNK KIDS,” “FIGHT CLUB,” “REVOLT SYNDROME,” and “TIME FLIES WHEN YOU’RE HAVING FUN.” “Love, Stargirl” from their 2020 release Surf also makes the setlist tonight. They are accompanied by Jerry on synths and a great drummer, Jack Dolan, who propels many of the songs with killer beats. Having recently also toured opening for Glass Animals, they are getting plenty of exposure to an expanded fanbase and are sure to be gaining new fans at every show judging from the reactions.
Keeping the energy high, indie-pop artist Christian Leave takes the stage to a legion of screaming girls and young women. Having found his audience through social media apps like Vine and YouTube, he has gone from releasing his own EP back in 2016 and a full-length album Heartbreak Room in 2018, to being sponsored by a major label. His set tonight though consists of songs from his two 2021 EPs – Heavy Hitting Hurts My Head and Days Like Lost Dogs. The opening song, “Your Life Your Time,” has an upbeat tempo that has the fans singing along. Christian, who also plays guitar, actively works the stage from side to side with an infectious smile that has the girls and women in the audience screaming for him.Several of the songs are short like “I Tried What You Practice,” “10 Steps,” and “Bedache,” and it is those that keep the audience moving with faster beats and guitar. Some of these songs are reminiscent of the sound of artists such as The Strokes and Cage The Elephant. Christian and his guitarist play off each other at times with some jamming and running and jumping. The bassist is a trip with long blond hair, long legs, black glasses, and a belt buckle with his name “Bill.” Other songs such as “Days Like Lost Dogs” and “Maybe” are slower and the lyrics seem to be much more personal about questioning oneself and being able to open up.
He closes out his set with “Beside You,” probably the longest song of the set and the slowest paced. It has a more atmospheric vibe to it and has Christian singing more softly. The crowd still loves it and shows their appreciation with loud cheers as he exits the stage.
Finally, the time has arrived for the headliner beabadoobee to wow the fans. She has grown quickly from posting songs on YouTube to being signed to a record label in the span of a year. After several EPs, she released her first full-length album Fake It Flowers in 2020 that received rave reviews and she also won the NME Radar Award in 2020. Her sixteen-song set tonight draws heavily from her last two releases – Fake It Flowers and Our Extended Play, with a few songs from Loveworm and Space Cadet. ”Sun More Often” kicks it off and the fans are immediately singing along as they do to every song. She is a breath of fresh air on the music scene and lets her music do the talking with a stripped-down stage setup with no props except some occasional smoke. “Care” picks up the pace a bit and gets the fans moving. It is “Together” from Fake It Flowers that ignites the fans and at the end, many are yelling “I Love You” and beabadoobee reciprocates.Most of the songs find beabadoobee firmly planted behind the mic at center stage as she sings and plays guitar. She is accompanied by another guitarist, bassist, and drummer. “She Plays Bass” is another fan-favorite that gets the fans dancing and gets her moving about the stage. The next song, “Yoshimi, Forest, Magdalene,” finds the band joining in a great jam toward the end. For “He Gets Me So High,” she leaves her guitar behind and starts working the stage while the fans respond with hands waving, bouncing, dancing, loud cheers, and more shouts of “I Love You.” With just an acoustic guitar, she slows things down with “Tired” and then ramps it back up with “Back to Mars.” This song has a raw, distorted guitar and rapid drumming and has beabadoobee actively pacing the whole stage while swinging the mic at times. It gets some of the loudest cheers of the evening.
She winds things down with “Worth It” and then “Last Day On Earth” which has the crowd dancing and singing loudly to the chorus of “Shoop-doo-doo, shoop-doo, badoobadoo, Shoop-doo, shoop-doo-badoo, oh yeah, Shoop-doo, shoop-doo, badoobadoo, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.“ She smiles, waves, and then runs off the stage. The crowd begins a chant for an encore and she obliges returning to the stage alone with just an acoustic guitar and plays her early hit “Coffee” which has the whole crowd singing every word and many holding up their cell phone lights and waving. She even mentions “I love Detroit” and that gets a deafening round of applause. With the rest of the band joining her back on stage, she closes it out with “Cologne” which finds her rocking the guitar at the front of the stage while the crowd screams in response. She really has a great connection to her fans who still can’t seem to get enough. Be sure to catch this fast-rising star on this tour so you can see her up close. The next time she comes around, she could very well be playing much larger venues.
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