Bea Miller Bonds With Her Fans at Varsity Theater

Credit: Sean Donohue | Echo Images
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The weather may had been rainy and gloom, but everyone around the U of M area was in high spirits due to the Gopher’s football win against Penn State earlier that day. The same vibe continued as I walked through the front doors of the Varsity Theater to see one of my favorite female artists, Bea Miller, take the stage with opening acts Kennedi and Kah-Lo.

 I had been pretty excited for this show all week, I saw Bea when she was at the Amsterdam Bar in St. Paul earlier this year on her first headlining tour. I knew that she put on a killer show, so it was great that I was going to experience it at a better venue. 

Before Bea took the stage we were graced with two opening acts. First of which was Minneapolis native, Kennedi. I had never heard of Kennedi before tonight, but I was really impressed with her sound and kind of disappointed that I had to wait this long before hearing her stuff. 

Her songs are primarily made up of a simple, but effective, hip-hop beat that’s accompanied by her lyrics with a slight auto effect layered onto. It reminded me a lot what post Malone sounds like, except with a female voice. However she’s wasn’t afraid to shake things up a bit when she brought out an acoustic guitar and decided to give the crowd an opportunity to turn their phone lights on and hold then high above the air as they sang along with her. 

Next on the bill was Nigerian-born, New York City-based house artist, Kah-Lo. I’ll start out by saying that she is hilarious on stage. At one point shes says to the crowd “Where are all my spicy bitches at?” 90% of the crowd screamed at the top of their lungs. Socked st the crowds response she says “This place is packed full of spicy bitches, well this song is for you!”

This was repeated several times through her set as she switched it between “fuck boys”, being lit, etc. Being a house artist her clear goal was to provide a track that would get the crowd loosened up and dancing, she did just that. The beats that she has are very heavy on the bass and clearly have Nigerian influences incorporated. 

After Kah-Lo had finished hosting her mini dance party, it came time for Bea Miller to finally take the stage. The crowd started to grow extremely antsy, chanting her name repeatedly in hope’s that’d be enough to get her to take the stage. After about 15 minutes of that sporadically happening, Bea finally took the stage with her backing band. 

Having seen Bea’s set before allowed me to experience her show in a completely different light. One of the amazing things is that she likes to talk between her songs. Whether she’s talking about how she always goes after fuck boys (popular topic tonight I guess), her personal struggles that led to the making of a song or just general back and forth with her fans; there is no shortage of Bea making her shows personable for each of her loyal fans.

Another aspect of her live performances that I didn’t really pick-up on till this show was the fact that she has incredible backing band that enhances her already great songs. If you listen to Bea’s studio songs they’re a lot more pop and bubble. With the addition of a lead guitarist, drummer and keyboardist, it opens up her ability to play on stage. It doesn’t matter if she’s flipping her hair around during a guitar solo or spinning around as she hits the high note, Bea is always smiling on stage alongside her band mates. 

Bea Miller is the real deal and I feel like not enough people realize that. Her songs are so personable and relatable for a majority of her fans (coming from my perspective as someone who is not her target demographic), but they’re also composed so wonderfully and allow for Bea to showcase her vocal capabilities flawlessly. I see this girl becoming a true talent in the next couple of years and she’ll be one of those artist I’ll always see when they come to town. 

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