After bursting onto the scene in late 2017 with her delicately beautiful and softly sung ‘Coffee’, beabadoobee has continued to make music waves with her varied style and introspective lyrics. Having spent her later teens in the spotlight, her 2022 release Beatopia was a look back to her early life and a reflection on all that had come before Beatrice Laus became beabadoobee. The album, which received commercial and critical success, also drew major support from her fan base, who, on a cold Sheffield night, packed out the floor of the Foundry.
An impassioned crowd bought into the night from the first song, ‘10:36’, with Bea’s distinctive styling bringing word-for-word lyric recital and enthusiastic dancing from the throngs who had got down for the early set start time of 20:30.
As the Foundry continued to fill out, the set tone shifted as early classics ‘Apple Cider’ and ‘Care’ made way for newer music, bringing with it that heavier sound that more modern beabadoobee is known for and, unfortunately, that’s where some issues started to emerge.
Whilst no knock on the artist herself, the Foundry’s sound system and acoustics just weren’t ready for Beabadoobee’s music. With speakers sounding rougher than the lungs of a 40-a-day smoker after pumping out club tunes three or four nights a week, much of the softer sounds that make up the layered soundscape of much of Bea’s songs were lost to the distortion. Combined with some poor EQ, both some of Bea’s vocals and most of guitarist Jacob Bugden’s solos were lost behind a wall of bass, kick drum and fuzz. It was a disappointing oversight from whoever chose the Foundry as a venue that the sound system had such an effect on the night.
However, these problems were seemingly unnoticed by the crowd who were loving the whole show, giving Bea and her band a whooping cheer after each song and broke into screams as Bea shouted out her whole band, especially best friend and bassist Eliana Sewell before going into ‘She Plays Bass’ mid-set.
To go with this strong of a song part way through a set, rather than to start or finish with it, shows Bea’s confidence in her repertoire and growth beyond that one song. It was one of the few times that the sound system decided to play ball, resulting in the highlight of the night.
But then the acoustics were back on it again. After starting her encore strongly with the beautifully stripped-back ‘Coffee’, which the audience adored, singing almost word-for-word, Bea went into another stripped-back song, this time ‘Ripples’ from new album, Beatopia. Being a slightly less well-known song, the crowd understandably weren’t quite as loud in their re-enactment of the lyrics, but most were comfortable in just vibing along to what is a gorgeous song. That is most.
A few decided that the quietest point of the set would be the best time to have their loudest conversation, with the acoustics of the Foundry echoing a handful of talkers across the room to the hundreds of listeners. It was a really disappointing moment, as a beautiful song was struck down by a few who couldn’t wait to have a chat.
Bea then got the rest of her band back on stage to finish off the night with fan-favourite ‘Cologne’. But once again, the sound system led to this undeniably cool track sounding just so much flatter than the recorded version. It’s once again tricky to point fingers at who’s to blame for this, except obviously not the band, who really did put their all into their big finale.
And then we were done. At 21:45, the lights came back on and we were hurried out to make way for a club night taking place in the Foundry that evening. It felt like an odd time for a gig to end, with it being too early to head on elsewhere but too late to have completely different plans for the evening. Another interesting administrative decision.
In short, Beabadoobee trying their absolute hardest to put on a good show for their fans but somewhere along the line, whether it’s the tour manager picking out the Foundry as a venue, the speakers spluttering along on their last legs, the sound technicians at the Foundry messing up the EQ for the show, or a combination of all of the above managed to get in the way of what could’ve been a really good show. It’s a telling tale of all the behind the scene work that goes into making a gig happen. From the sound engineers to the tour managers and then onto the band, each has a responsibility to make the night one to remember, and Beabadoobee’s show was a case of what can happen if some of those bits go wrong.
If I was to give the gig a rating, it would be a 4/10.
