Beabadoobee in Peak Form at Webster Hall on Thursday Night
It was kind of rude for no one to have warned me that the Beabadoobee audience is so young. Although I knew she and her band are Gen Z, I had always thought of Beatrice Laus’ English pop-rock project as being in conversation with the Snail Mails or the Soccer Mommys of the world, sad pop for millennials (we need it). But no, most in the crowd at Webster Hall on Thursday night were Zoomers themselves, and these young people came ready to go bonkers, even moshing multiple times to Beabadoobee’s sweet guitar pop. And I really must be getting old now, because when everyone started losing their shit to “She Plays Bass,” I quickly went from feeling their thrill along with them to thinking, “Haha, yeah have fun, but everyone be careful.”
But Beabadoobee and crew are highly professional. Although they have only been around for a few years, they’re already a fully staffed operation, immaculately dressed with their ’90s garb courtesy of a team that includes stylists Molly Hayward and Patricia Varillo, who also styles Laus’ mentor, the 1975’s Matty Healy. And they already have techs handling their onstage guitar handoffs. Speaking of guitars, I don't know what British peat moss Laus found her fresh-faced bandmates under and how they already have such formidable chops, but lead guitarist Jacob Bugden, bassist Eliana Sewell and drummer Luca Caruso were in peak form last night.
Just before Laus came out on her own to perform TikTok hit “Coffee,” from 2017, openers and fellow Healy acolytes Blackstarkids and Christian Leave joined Beabadoobee for a sing-along of “Last Day on Earth,” from last year’s Our Extended Play, to close out the pre-encore set as the audience bopped, raged and swooned, reminding the chronic-back-pain contingent of Thursday night’s crowd what passion for performance looks like. —Adlan Jackson | @AdlanKJ
(Beabadoobie play the Royale in Boston tonight.)
Photos courtesy of DeShaun Craddock | www.dac.photography
