Beabadoobee’s Powerlines tour arrived in San Diego at the Viejas Arena with a pay phone, powerlines and a lot of power on Oct. 24. Based on her newest album “Pylon,” the Powerlines Tour brought energy and nostalgia to fans new and old.
Opening with “Sun Has Set,” the earliest single off of “Pylon,” Beabadoobee set the tone for the concert, with guitar solos and loud vocals, telling the audience that this is not the same bedroom pop Beabadoobee that blew up in 2020. The entire show feels like a rock concert with a little under half the songs being from her newest album. “Pylon” is a much more rock forward, almost grunge album compared to her previous albums like “Beatopia,” a slower, acoustic and jazz influenced album, or “This is How Tomorrow Moves,” with a more chill rock sound that also maintains those acoustic and jazzy tones.
However, as the concert goes on, the setlist contains songs with a mix of genres signalling that both sides of Beabadoobee’s music are alive and well. With songs like “Coffee,” “the perfect pair” and “Glue Song,” she includes her more laid back and less intense songs which also happen to be some of her most famous ones.
Those songs, as well as “Care,” “She Plays Bass” and “Cologne” add older songs into the mix along with others from her more recent albums. This allows fans who might not have listened to her newest album to enjoy the show and it brings a sense of nostalgia to older fans by allowing her older content to not get lost to time or irrelevancy.
But, she carefully transitions back to her louder songs without any stark energy changes that feel abrupt. For example, “Glue Song” and “perfect pair” go into “Powerlines,” a song off of “Pylon” that starts slow and builds into a more powerful and loud sound, which matches the energy of the next 3 songs: “Nothing to Prove,” “Write Me A Letter” and “Satellite.” With this mix, fans can scream their heart out to the chorus on “Satellite,” just about 10 minutes after swaying to “Glue Song.”
Between some of these songs, the concert’s cameras pause to focus on a pay phone under a streetlight to the side of the stage. The phone continues to loom until Beabadoobee finally picks up the phone for “Satellite,” bringing the set into the concert, almost like the concert is a scene in a movie as she sings “hold my breath until the dial tone” while waiting for someone to pick up the phone. In order to create this scene, Beabadoobee places herself and her band in the middle of a road, with fake dirt and plants to the side and a huge pylon off the road with powerlines strung across the ceiling of the stage. For “Powerlines,” she climbs up the pylon and performs from there. Later during “In Motion,” at the end of the concert, the pylon sparks as the climax of the song hits, creating an extremely powerful performance and a great way to walk off stage and go on to the encore.
Similarly, the lighting design is stunning. Projections are mapped on to the powerlines, giving them the illusion of being electrified but also helping them fit in with the scene the song is trying to create. This paired with a video projected to the back of the stage, each song gets its own scene as the stage gets transported into different surroundings, whether that’s a dreamy, underwater feel for “All I Did Was Dream of You” or under a red, brewing storm with red powerlines for a darker song like “Cologne.”
Together, the set isn’t just some decorations that lay around the band, but rather a whole environment to contextualize the music she is playing. The set itself reflects “Pylon’s” feelings of isolation while the lighting allows the audience to travel outside of that album and into some of the slower moments with her older songs or other singles.
As she moves into the encore, the interaction of the set decreases, making it feel more raw and personal than the rest of the show. Unlike some other artists, Beabadoobee’s Powerlines Tour moves from song to song with minimal breaks, keeping the energy flowing throughout the concert. But, during the encore, she talks about her feelings on performing and the different sides to her music, making it a much more intimate moment than the rest of the concert.
Overall, the entire concert feels electric. From “Pylon” to “Coffee,” she effortlessly blends her music styles to create an amazing set that leaves no fan wanting more and creating a captivating performance from start to finish. As she teases, and even plays, new music throughout the concert, anyone who attends the Powerlines Tour will be excited to see what comes next from Beabadoobee.
Shannon Kunz is an Arts & Entertainment Intern for the fall 2026 quarter. She can be reached at skunz1@uci.edu.
Edited by Avani Kumar and Zara Baker
Interested in becoming an intern or a contributing writer for the Entertainment section?
Contact us at entertainment@newuniversity.org!
