Charlotta Sharma reflects on a night at the Liquid Rooms with Beabadoobee.
Beatrice Laus, aka Beabadoobee, took the Liquid Rooms by storm last Sunday evening, treating her audience to a long awaited night of 90s inspired alternative rock tunes and acoustic indie anthems. Having been postponed for months, Beabadoobee’s UK tour of her debut album Fake it Flowers is finally underway to the delight of her many fans.
The Filipino-British singer-songwriter’s breakout hit, ‘Coffee’, released in 2017, propelled her onto the indie-music scene as a lo-fi, bedroom pop artist, known for her candy-floss voice and soft acoustic guitar. Since then, her EPs have leaned more and more towards angsty, alternative rock, a genre which you can tell she absolutely revels in performing. 2020’s Fake it Flowers has been described using the term ‘bubblegrunge’ as Bea takes inspiration from the likes of Alanis Morissette, Liz Phair and Veruca Salt.
Wearing a red tartan minidress, perhaps a nod to her Scottish venue, Bea certainly looked the image of a nineties grunge girl on the night. She started her set with the delightful ‘Sun More Often’, a slow build which only increased the crowd’s anticipation for the bigger hits to come.
It was ‘She Plays Bass’ which truly enlivened the audience, as the centre of the crowd gradually morphed into a mosh pit thanks to the enthusiastic encouragement of one of Bea’s band members, Jacob Bugden. Given the crowd was largely made up of teenagers, with most of Bea’s fanbase being Gen-Z, there was no heavy moshing, but rather what could only be described as extremely passionate jumping. With only one major tumble during one of her heavier songs, ‘Yoshimi, Forest, Magdalene’, the crowd were remarkably well-behaved throughout.
A personal highlight from the show was her rock rendition of the originally slow, indie love song, ‘Back to Mars’. Whilst the original version is popular for its simplicity and sweetness, the version that Bea performed on the night may have been even better. Placing her guitar aside for this particular number, Bea revealed that herself and her band were somewhat “nervous” to perform the song this way, as it was their first time doing so live. It’s safe to say, however, that there was no need for nerves. They rocked the stage, and the crowd too, with this short but intense and lively song.
With Edinburgh being the penultimate location of her UK tour, her stage presence was sensational by this point. Bea has the remarkable ability to reveal her modest and reserved side when talking to the crowd, and yet also manages to appear effortlessly confident whilst performing her songs. She owns the stage, interacting with the crowd and her band with such ease, despite having revealed in multiple interviews that she has always been particularly shy. Having watched her perform, this is very hard to believe.
Beabadoobee at Liquid Rooms. Photo by Charlotta Sharma