Concert Review: Nessa Barrett at ACL Weekend 2 Friday
TikTok star turned budding pop-punk angel Nessa Barrett softly rocked the American Express stage at the hottest time of the most scorching day yet during ACL 2023.
Written by Arundhati Ghosh
Photos courtesy of Greg Noire
At 2:24 p.m., a black-and-white montage of animated candles melting, a mercury thermometer breaking, and a grainy Betty Boop reclining in front of an even hazier fireplace set the tone for Nessa Barrett’s second-ever ACL appearance as an artist. A gothic, ethereal vocal chorus opened the door for the bassist’s intense beginning riff and the drummer’s resonating snare. Three minutes later, the baby cowboy herself found her place in front of the crowd, standing ruler-straight in front of the white fluorescent cross displayed at the back of center stage. Keeping with trends, she wore a short, sparkly black micro mini-skirt, a light blue latex top, and puffy white sleeves that helped outline her “DELICATE” chest tattoo. Several crowd members gave shocked in-tandem remarks about her beauty, with gasps of “she’s a real-life angel,” and “absolutely gorgeous” making their way through the audience.
She opened with “scare myself” off of her debut EP, pretty poison. The Lana Del Rey influence in her music was most evident here, as her words flowed into each other but still remained discernible through her unwaveringly clear vocals. The 21-year-old songstress then moved to “american jesus” from her most recent EP, hell is a teenage girl, miming smoking a cigarette in one hand as she clutched the mic stand with the other. These actions purposefully matched her lyrics: “He's got lips like cherry wine / And cigarette smoke on his breath.” Her band members, all experts in their own rights, worked together to create a perfect mesh of guitar, bass, and drums, but in doing so, they drowned out Barrett’s more softly-delivered lyrics. This continued into her next song, as Barrett’s powerful instrumentalists overtook her voice again for “tired of california” as she awkwardly tapped her feet in a bastardized cabaret step at the side of the stage. She found both her footing and voice again once she reclaimed her place in front of the cross.
The relatively new entrant to the neo-pop-punk world took a break to introduce herself, earnestly telling her adoring fans, “Thank you for being here with me!” She then stated that her next song would be “club heaven,” a tribute song to her late best friend, Cooper Noriega. The most genuine emotion in her set came through as she half-questioned, half-pleaded to him during her bridge about her chances of meeting him again in heaven: “What if I can't get in? / How will I see you again?”
Austin’s intense heat evidently overtook the singer as well, as she removed her sleeves to perform “fuckmarrykill.” Her skipping and sliding between the center platform and the edges of the stage felt robotic — evidence that the budding singer, although fully in control of her voice, was still testing the waters on what felt natural to do with her body. She flipped off the air in front of her and acted as if she was placing a gun to her head every time she crooned the chorus lines “Fuck life, marry my bed / Kill the voices in my head,” solidifying a habit of miming her lyrics that continued throughout the set. She sustained a stable, echoing falsetto, letting it slip into the next song, “lie,” which she performed while sitting at the edge of the stage and looking out into the crowd.
Her bassist brought a world of power into “the one that should’ve got away,” perfectly outlining Barrett’s beautifully developed vocals. The band’s final musical rush led directly into the sentimental tune “die first,” creating a rightfully subdued, droning mood for the second track to serve as a letter of deep friendship to the late Noriega. This made for a jarring transition into “sick of myself,” a song with an EDM beat and rhythmic rock influences. Pop-based “gaslight” came next, with Barrett demonstrating how adept she was at maintaining notes. Despite the track’s inherent breathiness, the songstress never once seemed out of breath, even when she lied down abruptly during the guitarist’s most intense crescendos.
Barrett seemed inclined towards ending her set on a high note despite her typically somber lyrics, starting her finale with striking ’90s-inspired power ballad “i hope ur miserable until ur dead.” Her smug attitude as she intoned her petty chorus lyrics, “I hope you never fall in love again / I hope you be yourself and lose your friends / I hope they call you out for shit you said / I hope you're miserable until you're dead” buoyed her otherwise poised performance. The dancey jam slid into a few lines of the more acoustic “sincerely,” which Barrett wisely used to cool her vocal chords down before jumping into the crash course in balancing heavy instrumentals that was “BANG BANG!” The singer-songwriter utilized the lion’s share of her energy during her set in this closing song, prancing around the stage and locking eyes with fans as she ended her time at ACL with, pun entirely intended, a bang.
Though her highly experienced band members occasionally stole the show, Nessa Barrett showcased her incredible vocal control and breathing capabilities. Her songs varied from high-energy and low-sentiment to duly gentle but truly earnest, depicting a range typical of the genres she’s sampled from and continues to learn about as she finds her artistic footing.