Outside the Forum Theatre, a queue trails down Flinders Street, onto Degraves Lane and around another block on Flinders Lane. Inside, the room fills quickly with a predominantly female-presenting, refreshingly un-Caucasian crowd with a smattering of fake freckles and a lot of cute backpacks. Entwined couples and groups of friends feed into an atmosphere that is edging on euphoric anticipation, and a sense that this is among the first concerts that many attendees have been to.
Taking advantage of the excitement, London-based Kiwi singer-songwriter Molly Payton proves a great match for the headliner. She and her band occupy the stage with a naturalness that feels emboldening. Payton has an easy demeanour and a huge sound that comprises the mass of shoegaze guitars and arena-sized drum fills yet finds space to draw things to an alt-country intimacy that feels full of confidence and intelligence when she wants to. She finishes her set with the anthemic How to Have Fun and the plaintive jangle of Honey, the opening track to Slack, her recent album that no doubt picked up some more listeners after tonight.
Thirty minutes later, and to a wave of joyous screaming, Beabadoobee arrives on stage, grabs her guitar as the band assembles behind her and launches into her pop epic Worth It. The crowd surges toward her and within seconds at least one fan is pulled over the barrier and out of the crush. “You’re ill Melbourne,” she says hoarsely, as the cymbals shimmer and the guitar fades from the song’s close. “I’m so ill. I’m ill as fuck, but I’m still going to play for you guys.” Today’s meet at greet at Sound Merch in Collingwood was accompanied by a sign that told fans the singer had a sore throat and was close to losing her voice, though tonight it doesn’t sound like it. How much is due to backing vocal tracks isn’t clear, but they’re clearly playing a big part. Regardless of whether it’s all her or she’s miming, the crowd’s devotion never wavers. Some songs (He Gets Me So High, Care, 10:36) inspire a forest of phones and hours of new material for TikTok. Others (Yoshimi Forest Magdalene, She Plays Bass) send an electric shock through the crowd who respond to their opening chords by shaking their heads, filling the room with spinning hair.
On stage, Beabadoobee spends most of the night rooted to her microphone, sometimes edging away with small kicks that – along with any movement or gesture - trigger a swell of excited screams. The eyes of guitarist Jacob Bugden stay glued on the neck of his guitar as he fills the space between his amplifiers and the phalanx of pedals at his feet. Bassist Eliana, the most focused of the quartet, smiles as she plugs away, anchoring the song with her warmth while drummer Luca Caruso does a sterling job in taking the songs away from their backing tracks and making them feel live, loud and immediate.
“This is my favourite track from the record,” Beabadoobee says, her voice notably thinner as she introduces the recent single See You Soon. By the time it reaches the ears of the crowd, even a slower, gentler song like this is turned into a banger with hundreds of arms sent aloft amid a rowdy singalong. Talk, with its chorus of “we go out on a Tuesday” brings even more energy from the crowd and thoughts how many of these songs would be perfect on the soundtrack to 10 Things I Hate About You, the answer, almost all of them.
Even with her voice audibly weakening as the show progresses, it’s clear that she really wants everyone to have a good night. When we call her back for an encore, Beabadoobee returns with just an acoustic guitar and a plea. “You’ve got to sing this song with me OK,” she asks. “You know it, it’s called Coffee.” But, with so many people focused on filming, few people beyond the first few rows join in on the song that made her famous. Regardless, the concert closes on the high-energy high of Cologne, one of her earliest and strongest songs. As Bugden goes all Sonic Youth on his Fender Stratocaster and Caruso pulls out some fierce double-kick and cymbal smashes, the sense of euphoria never drops. These songs are so strong and the connections they’ve made have brought so many people together that, even through illness, this is a triumphant show. It makes you wonder what she could do at full strength.
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