Nessa Barrett in Dublin review: A star on the rise in need of time to find her voice

Nessa Barrett

3Olympia Theatre, Dublin

★★★☆☆

TikTok has changed how music is packaged and hyped, and now it is producing its own stars. One of the more prominent is Nessa Barrett, a 22-year-old New Jersey singer who achieved online celebrity as a teenager by lip-syncing to her favourite songs on the ubiquitous video-sharing platform.

She has parlayed that fame into a budding pop career that has already won her a cult fan base. They are out in force on the first of two concerts at 3Olympia – a few having forked out a serious wedge for deluxe ticket packages (“the Aftercare Soundcheck Experience” for her gig in Glasgow later in the week will cost north of €200, plus the usual modest Ticketmaster add-ons).

But if the performance confirms Barrett as a star on the rise – and that her fans are willing to dig deep for the privilege of seeing her – it also suggests that she is an artist making her way and yet to step outside the shadows of her influences.

Those influences run the A-Z of “Sad girl” pop – a genre characterised by its melancholic vibes and introspective lyrics (dominated by themes of teenage heartache). Arriving wearing a champagne-pink dress and holding a guitar, she kicks off with the Dirty Little Secret, a dreamlike power-ballad fuelled by darkly diaristic lyrics (“We don’t have to be in love/Let’s keep it discreet, sneaking out the backdoor”).

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Barrett cuts a slight figure and speaks softly as she stands atop an elevated box, behind which a drummer, keyboardist and guitarist are arranged. But if unprepossessing between songs, her music is full of stormy intensity.

Alas, it also has the quality of a playlist of some of Generation Z’s starriest names. The spirit of Lana Del Rey haunts Heartbreak In The Hamptons, down to the preppy title and gauzy melody. Similarly, Billie Eilish fans are sure to appreciate Edward Scissorhands, fuelled by Barrett’s cooed vocals and baroque imagery (“There’s darkness in your eyes/The saddest boy I’ve ever seen)”.

Barrett has been praised for speaking frankly about her mental health issues and, last year, went on to TikTok to describe the stress that online negativity had caused her. It is a reminder of how young pop stars are too often regarded as public property – to be ridiculed and ripped apart for sport.

One way of putting their haters in their place is to write peerless pop. That is what Barrett archives with her strongest tunes. S.L.U.T. and P*rnstar are Nine Inch Nails-esque onslaughts that draw on her struggles to overcome emotional repression (“Sexuality was always associated with something negative for me,” she explained in a recent interview).

Best of all is the glam piledriver Dying on the Inside, which features one of those perfectly cascading choruses where one line flows into the other. It is, as the experts would say, a “banger”.

The takeaway from tonight’s enjoyable but uneven gig is that Barrett needs more songs of equivalent quality if she is to shed the “internet famous” tag and transcend her origin story as a TikTok novelty act. She has the musical talent and the aura essential to all great pop stars. All going well, the music industry will give her space to grow on her own terms rather than rushing to monetise her while she is still finding her voice.

Nessa Barrett plays 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin, again on Tuesday, May 27th