beabadoobee Review

The pylon stood at the back of the stage like a monument to something, though it wasn’t immediately clear what. Maybe to the album that gave the tour its name. Maybe to the idea that a 26 year old who once recorded “Coffee” in her bedroom could now fill arenas. Or maybe it was just a prop: a metal transmission tower, flanked by fake shrubs and a road painted onto the stage, leading nowhere in particular.

For much of Saturday night at Viejas Arena, beabadoobee—born Beatrice Kristi Ilejay Laus—seemed determined to make that monument mean something. The Powerlines Tour is her first proper stadium run, a leap that follows years of opening slots for Clairo, Olivia Rodrigo, The 1975, and Sabrina Carpenter. And if the production occasionally threatened to swallow the show, the singer herself kept finding ways to pull it back toward the intimate.

Before that, though, Wisp made her case for the next slot up the bill. The up-and-coming shoegaze artist, who has been opening the North American leg of the tour, delivered a set that was sonically of a piece with beabadoobee’s heavier moments: walls of guitar, reverb-drenched vocals, and a dreamy, almost narcotic sense of drift. She wore a white dress reminiscent of an RPG protagonist and played a guitar adorned with Hello Kitty, a small flash of personality in an otherwise moody presentation, and thanked the crowd for turning out early. Her breakout track, “Your Face,” closed the set and drew the night’s first genuine roar of recognition, a reminder that she’s already built a following of her own. It was a smart pairing; Wisp’s hazy, atmospheric rock primed the room for the guitar-forward intensity that followed.

The main set began at 9:00 PM on the dot with “Sun Has Set.” The lead single from Pylon—her fourth album, released in September of this year—is an upbeat, rock-leaning opener that set the tone: guitar-heavy, unpolished in the best way, more jam session than arena spectacle. The floor, a mix of Gen Z and Millennials in earth tones and black leather, responded instantly.

Pylon was written between tours, and its songs carry the weight of that dislocation. “I missed home, I missed how people were,” she wrote when announcing the record. That homesickness translated well live, especially on “Radio” and “In Motion,” both of which traded the album’s cleaner edges for something heavier and more immediate. Her band, guitarists Jason Vance Harris and Eliana Sewell prominent throughout, treated each song like a chance to stretch out, and the crowd treated each riff like a shared discovery.

But the night’s most memorable moments came when the spectacle receded. “Care,” from 2022’s Beatopia, turned into a full venue singalong, the kind that makes a 12,000 capacity arena feel like a club. Next, the lights were dimmed and the production was limited—just beabadoobee and an acoustic guitar. It was “Coffee,” the song that catapulted her to stardom. The audience sang louder than she did. It was the clearest reminder that her rise has been built on connection, not fireworks.

That’s not to say the fireworks didn’t work. During “Powerlines,” she climbed the onstage pylon and sang from its heights, a genuinely striking image. “Satellite” found her performing into a payphone before the song erupted into a riff-driven climax, strobes flickering across the arena. She also used the platform to preview what’s next. “The Road” had a Sheryl Crow-esque easygoing swing, while “Lemon To My Lime” leaned almost country. Both suggested that Pylon may not be the final word on where she’s headed.

The main set closed and the band left, but the return was inevitable. The encore opened with “the way things go,” the crowd’s voices carrying the gentle, homesick melody. Followed by the unreleased “Lemon To My Lime.” Then came “Beaches,” one of her most streamed songs and a fitting closer: golden light, arms in the air, the whole arena swaying together.

At times, the production overwhelmed itself. The strobing was relentless for long stretches, and the set design (impressive as it was) sometimes competed with the music rather than supported it. beabadoobee was at her most compelling under a single spotlight, and the show’s quieter moments consistently hit harder than its loudest.

But that’s a minor complaint about a tour that represents a major arrival. beabadoobee has spent years as a supporting act, learning from some of the biggest stages in pop. Saturday night proved she’s ready to command her own. The pylon, the powerlines, the fake road to nowhere; none of it mattered as much as the voice at the center of it all, and the crowd that knew every word.