Nessa Barrett Announces 2023 Australian Headline Shows

September 18, 2023

By W. Mackellar

Pop singer Nessa Barrett has locked in her first-ever Australian shows for later this year. The US artist will play three shows up the east coast in December, beginning in Brisbane on Tuesday, 12th December, with dates in Sydney and Melbourne following. Local artist Oliver Cronin will join the tour as the support act.

UPDATE 21/09/2023: Second show added at Melbourne’s Forum after the first show sells out. Details below

Nessa Barrett: ‘American Jesus’

Barrett shot to fame after posting covers and other content on TikTok over the last few years, and in 2022 she released her debut album young forever, which featured singles ‘die first’ and ‘madhouse’. Barrett followed it up in 2023 with a new EP titled hell is a teenage girl (yes, it’s a Jennifer’s Body reference) which dropped in July.

Like her debut, the EP sees Barrett address her mental health struggles – in particular borderline personality disorder – and the experience of growing up in a strict religious household.

“I know a lot of people struggle with BPD and I know it’s insanely hard,” Barrett told Kerrang! earlier this year. “It’s a chronic illness and one of the most painful mental health disorders. A lot of people can’t even get diagnosed with it until they’re 18 because you have to go through puberty. And I had a bunch of misdiagnoses.

“I felt so crazy my entire life, I thought that I was a lost cause, there was no hope, something was wrong with me, I was born with a messed-up brain, I couldn’t control anything. And I would be like this forever. Finally knowing the pinpoint of what was wrong with me and getting that clarity, that was the moment where I was like, ‘Okay, I want to help people.’ Because I know that there’s a lot of people that felt the same way that I did. They didn’t know what was going on.”

Barrett is due to release a new single in October.