Adelaide Feast Festival – Beau Heartbreaker

Beau Heartbreaker is a great story-teller, guitar player and above all, a superb singer.

He immediately makes the tiny audience in the small La Boheme space comfortable; the sign of an experienced performer.

He tells us that he’s a country boy. “I live on a farm, a dairy farm”. It’s a father to son concern and has been in his family for generations, but we get the feeling that Beau is different.  His songs, rich in metaphor and cryptic clues, reveal more about him as the show goes along, although we feel as if we’re never quite given the full story.

As a country performer Beau is brilliant.  His first song, together with his great acoustic guitar work, takes us straight to the heart of rural Australia. His second song is about having a beard and appearing complex.  It’s this song, along with the beard’s relevance to Beau’s gender identity, that allows us a little further into him as a person.

His beautiful voice goes far and wide and the country music he creates is up there with the best. But it’s only when Beau drifts into the jazz numbers and allows his voice to rise to those delightful female high notes that jazz so embraces, that we fully appreciate what an amazing voice this individual has: just beautiful!

Beau uses various photos to complement the stories he tells and he spins the globe to see where next he’ll head. It is in Mongolia, living the life with the locals, that Beau eventually finds solace and acceptance. He shares his journey of self-discovery candidly and with great joy.

Climate change, eating a Marmot and the possible freaky side effects, and returning home to break the big news to his loved ones all lead towards the end of the show.

We know all along that Beau has something big to say. Using some questionnaire sheets about sexuality and gender he tells us, “We didn’t get a choice in this”.  How true!

Beau, regardless of how you identify, you have got an awesome voice, play those chords bloody well and know how to spin a top yarn.  And you are unafraid of telling it how it really is.

Great show mate!