Nessa Barrett receives massive oestrogen-fuelled adoration from a sell-out crowd. Male as well as female. All manner of gender permitted.
The fans were eighty per cent women. Some boyfriends, but a large number were teenagers in groups. Dressed up to the nines.
The energy in the room prior to the main act was euphoric and beatific. Anima spirit can be a powerful presence and that connection was made from the audience to the performer. Who sang all her songs with her.
Janesa Jaida Barrett is of Puerto Rican descent and was born and raised in Galloway, New Jersey.
Father Drew Barrett was a Rap artist and an actor, and who had a home studio. But he left the family early and Barrett was brought up by her mother. But the music pedigree was established.
Tik-Tok was the medium by which she came to widespread attention. A recording contract was signed soon after.
A big part of her brand comes from exposing her personal struggles with mental health problems like bi-polar disorder, depression and suicidal ideation. She started therapy aged 6.
She deals with a lot of personal issues through her songwriting. The lyrics are sharp and witty and have literary merit. There is no depression in her sound.
She admits to admiring artists like Lana Del Ray and the Arctic Monkeys.
Before she appears to the piercing massed screams, there is projected on the backdrop: Nessa Barrett Church Club for the Lonely Tour.
This is the last show for this tour.
Arriving on the stage after the fanfare is a diminutive dynamo with long jet-black hair.
With her are Dan guitars and bass, and Sage on drums. Their music is spare and judicious, and never indulgent.
Betty Boop appears on the back screen as the lights dim. The famous cartoon Flapper girl with the squeaky girly voice. Barrett does have a similar voice and she is sincere in her communication to the fans tonight.
With an explosive drum opening she races through the Girl Pop of scare myself, american jesus and tired of california.
This is high-octane Pop but there is an ominous and foreboding underbelly.
Take madhouse. Footage of scary clowns like Captain Spaulding from House of 1000 Corpses. Minimalist Pop rhythms behind a song of manic energy.
I’ll have a beautiful chemical melt down/ Loosing the screws in my brain/ Could be any day now/ They gon’ put me in the madhouse.
club heaven she calls her saddest song. Addressed to her best friend who died. I’m searching for your halo/ ‘Cause I’m not having any fun in the city full of angels.
She asks everyone to dance, and the drums lead this one through charging vibrant rhythms.
love bomb could be Sixties Teen Pop with a bright folkie Monkees sound.
Everyone sits down to play motel whore. Twangy guitar and the atmosphere of Twin Peaks. One night stay/ You’re out the door/ You treat me like a motel whore.
Reflects the hurt and anger of Marianne Faithfull on Why’d Ya Do It?
Barrett’s songwriting acts as a companion to Bret Easton Ellis novels. The spiritual bankruptcy of the children born towards the end of the Boomer period. Love was materialism and money from the parents, and the Soul was lost to wickedness.
Less Than Zero is the lauded debut novel. Try his latest, Shards, where he revisits his high school generation to look into their souls again. The age group that is filling the venue tonight.
A cover of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy and she gives it spooky undertones.
Oliver Cronin is an Australian Indie Pop artist. He is a classically trained multi-instrumentalist. Learnt flamenco guitar as a youngster.
He has the chops but tonight he plays with a drummer, bass and electric guitar whilst he charges around as lead singer.
Many songs are soft Pop Rap with the emphasis on melody and danceable popping rhythms.
10’000 Hours is the brightest, and closest to a conventional Pop song.
Whilst the music has a good rhythmic flow, it doesn’t lift to any great heights tonight.
Nessa Barrett lets the massed voices of the crowd carry her songs. They do it well. Every song is greeted which cheers and squeals.
I hope ur miserable until ur dead. She can be as ironically funny as Morrissey with the Smiths.
But you drag me through the mud/ Here I come now/ I’m as pretty as fuck/ I hope you never fall in love again.
The crowd loves her, and they are screaming on this one.
They must have known it was the one before last.
BANG BANG is the closer. The drums detonate at the beginning. The fastest song of the evening and has a punky manic intensity.
You talk too much/ You’re not that smart/ So I shut you up with a crowbar/ If you think this song is about you/ It is! It is!
Nessa Barrett is a young Pop sensation. Smart and scathingly funny. With deeper ominous and unsettling undertones. That reflects her battles with mental health.
This is her first show here, and the ecstatic crowd are assured of her return.
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Leonie Moreland
Nessa Barrett
Oliver Cronin
