Beau Bristow performs at UIndy
The heartfelt lyrics and unique guitar sounds of Beau Bristow flowed from UIndy Hall at the Homecoming Coffeehouse on Oct. 9.
Born in Alabama, the Nashville, Tennessee based 29-year-old musician has been playing music since he was five. His mother, a pianist at his local church, sparked his interest in playing piano.
Then, at around age 12, he picked up his first guitar and has been playing ever since.
Songs like ‘Sign Me Up,’ ‘Crazy and It’s All Your Fault,’ ‘Someone Tell Me Something’s Wrong,’ and ‘I’m Gonna Love’ were played at the concert, and some students felt a connection to the music.
“In his song ‘Don’t get too close to me’ he talked about how he wants everyone to like him for who he is,” sophomore Emily Kish said. “I can relate to that because I am the same way and I’ve never heard of a song that could describe that so well.”
The Belmont University graduate was trained in classical guitar, the genre he plays most often.
However, Bristow said that he has many influences and sounds to his music.
“I grew up listening to artists like Derek Webb, The Normals and U2,” said Bristow. “I always tell people that my music is a blend of Ryan Adams and Jason Mraz.”
The emotion and feeling put into his songs was helped by his natural stage presence and interaction with the audience.
“His stage presence was very comforting because he was very into his music, and it made me want to get more into it,” Kish said.
Bristow works with a non-profit organization, Mocha Club, an online community of people giving up the cost of two mochas a month, or $7, to fund relief and development projects in Africa, specifically in the war-torn regions of Sudan and the AIDS plagued countries in Southern Africa. The project helps to fund clean water, orphan care, HIV/AIDS health care and education for child mothers and women at risk.
It’s a project that is very important to Bristow, one that he feels is worth giving up something in order to help others that are less fortunate than himself.
“I am good friends with one of the founding members and recently started working with the non-profit organization,” Bristow said. “It’s an important organization. If all we have to do is give up two coffees a month, it’s really not that hard to help where we can.”
He even wrote a song that detailed the life of a 12-year-old girl, a victim of human trafficking, one that not only sparked emotion in the audience members but also in Bristow.
“I could just feel the emotion when he sang the song, you could see the power in his words as he sang them, his movements, his eyes and even the way he played guitar changed in a way that really conveyed the emotions. It made me want to get involved in the Mocha Club,” Kish said.
He stressed the importance of taking a look at life and finding out what matters most.
“One thing I think that people, especially college students, should do is take the time to weigh everything and to find out what life is all about,” Bristow said. “I as an artist set out to understand life and to express it in my music. More than anything, my quest to understand life has been one of the most gratifying things.”
