Two and a half years ago, Beabadoobee played a tiny show for NME‘s Girls To The Front at Londonâs Shacklewell Arms to less than a couple of hundred people. Performing a handful of stripped-back tunes from her âPatched Upâ EP armed only with an acoustic guitar, the crowd were smitten for early numbers like ‘Coffee’ and âThe Moon Songâ.
It’s a familiar site today then, to see fans are belting back the words to the lilting and chilled âCoffeeâ; only this time there are a few more voices in the crowd. Today, Beabadoobee is playing Reading Festival Main Stage East to a sea of thousands. âCoffeeâ has since been sampled on Canadian rapper Powfu‘s TikTok-dominating hit ‘Death Bed (Coffee For Your Head)â â racking up billions of plays on the video sharing app.
Flanked by her three-piece band, the Dirty Hit signee effervescently tours us through songs from those early acoustic moments, through her rockier debut record ‘Fake It Flowers’, right up to her 2021 EP ‘Our Extended Play’. Itâs a slick eight song set that pays tribute to Bea Kristiâs lo-fi beginnings, celebrates her current blistering sound, and with the most recent tunes, starts to look at where she could be going next.
Opening with the jangling grunge-pop of âCareâ, followed up by ‘Dye It Red’, Kristi and her band riff and thrash with ease, but not as effortlessly as it is for circle pits to erupt at the most ferocious moments. The highlights of the set, though, come in the cuts from latest project âOur Extended Playâ, which was co-written and produced by Dirty Hit labelmates George Daniel and Matty Healy of The 1975.
The dancing shuffle of the glorious âLast Day On Earthâ is a delight, with Beabadoobee sacking off her guitar and taking centre stage, microphone in hand; while the set closer of careening recent single âCologneâ leaves us shook as a fierce, balls-to-the-wall power-rock banger. If this is a sign of what’s to come, then we’re all here for it.
Over the past few years, Beabadoobee and her band have become a well-oiled machine. While a few nerves may have needed to be shaken off at the set’s start, the end showed a killer band playing at their absolute best, fully deserving this brilliant moment and the great things that they could well be due on the horizon. From Shacklewell Arms to the Reading Main Stage, thatâs not bad, is it? Just imagine what she could do next. We can’t wait to find out.
Check back at NME all weekend for more reviews, news, interviews, photos and more from Reading & Leeds 2021.Â
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