Live Review: Willis Earl Beal & Courtney Barnett

The beauty of festival season is it allows international artists possibly not yet at a level to headline a show in these parts begin to build an Australian following with a couple of talked-about festival sets and sideshows. Chicago-born artist, poet and musician Willis Earl Beal is the perfect example. In Australia for Falls Festival, Beal's GoodGod sideshow certainly wasn't packed, but those who were in attendance are sure to remember the show.

Support act Courtney Barnett made jokes about attempting to play solo without her band but the Melbourne musician should have more confidence in herself. Her guitar playing may not have been very flashy, but the warm tones she was eliciting from the vintage instrument sat beautifully against the rich melancholy of her voice. Give Barnett a year or two to explore what her voice can really do and she should become a great performer.

By contrast, though seeming to have sprung up from nowhere with a hipster-ready backstory, Willis Earl Beal is already a great performer. Though his set barely lasted more than 30 minutes, he crooned, preached, howled, stalked and even, for the last song, strummed a guitar sitting on his lap to woo the audience with his most well-known tune, Evening's Kiss.

He began his set with a stunning a cappella prayer, Blue Escape, to show off the magnificent voice he has at his command. Then the reel-to-reel sitting behind him whirred into life with a scratchy set of musical accompaniments; some offerings were the simple pling of a glockenspiel, others built mesmerising walls of sound that allowed Beal to launch off into Tom Waits-ian growls.

With an emphasis on performance art, Beal was constantly moving, throwing his material backdrop around his shoulders as a cape or draping it over his head, but it was the power of his voice that made this set something amazing and why he'll be back in Australia before too long.