There is a woman in the queue outside the venue that has paid $500 for two tickets to tonight’s show. Five hundred dollary doos! For a good-looking Irishman with one album to his name, it’s a bit ridiculous, but such is the tsunami of hype that arrived on our shores before the man did himself. A nomination for Song Of The Year at the Grammys will do that and evidently, so will a well-oiled man-bun.
Arriving on stage to a reception that could only be described as euphoric, the pitch some members of the crowd were screaming at couldn’t be heard by the human ear, you could see them going a shade of purple in the face, but the sound was apparently supersonic. Supported by a small army of a band on stage, Hozier began the set with Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene – if this is a reference for la petit mort, the French slang for the female orgasm, then the irony wasn’t lost on the crowd. Neé Andrew Hozier-Byrne, he proved to be an immensely likable and humble man, his first show in the Southern Hemisphere was seemingly not any different to his other sold-out, shriek-inducing gigs around the world, but he seemed genuinely happy to be in Melbourne and rather surprised by the level of fandom he has across the Indian Ocean.
Working his way through the self-titled album, each song was given a short introduction; thankfully they weren’t not self-indulgently long-winded, just cute stories of where he was when he wrote the tracks and what he wrote them about. It was achingly clear after From Eden, Jackie & Wilson and the latest megahit Someone New that Hozier is a readymade pop star, he’ll have no problem sitting in between Paolo Nutini and Ed Sheeran at the dinner table. His voice is effortless and the strength he has within his range is remarkable, but the range itself is small, he struggles to the hit high notes from his record and stays safely in his comfort zone.
Things became more interesting when he went off script, leaving the band behind for a cover of Skip James’ Illinois Blues, on the acoustic guitar, Hozier showed off his considerable talent, something the majority of his own catalogue doesn’t exemplify. If he wants to break the Top 40 mould, he needs to write himself harder, more complicated guitar parts; why condemn yourself to simple and boring chords when you’re capable of so much more? He asks the crowd if anyone is from Ireland and everyone but the Kiwi bouncer at the door roars and throws their hands in the air. “There’s actually no one left in Ireland, before we left, we had the job of turning off the lights,” – that sort of Irish wit would be just as welcomed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival as The Corner Hotel.
The duet In a Week is another break from the pop structures that serve him so well, with folk and bluegrass harmonies that lilt and create a lovely juxtaposition to Hozier’s go-to powerful belting delivery. No prizes for guessing what the finished the set with; Take Me To Church was sung by 300-odd punters like the hymn it is and with the tall, Wicklow-born preacher hollering from the pulpit, the very foundations of The Corner felt like they were trembling.
The encore kept it simple, Cherry Wine highlighting Hozier’s strength that when he dirties up the pop clichés with the blues and doesn’t over-complicate his arrangements he can be so much more than a pop singer. Then the unexpected happened, a welcome surprise considering how predictable one-album gigs can be, the band dropped a cover of Amerie’s One Thing – one of the best pop singles of the last decade. Did it completely work? Of course not, but it was a lot of fun and garnered one of biggest responses of the night. He finished with Work Song, but having won over the crowd with the opening bars of the gig, its finish was just a celebration, Hozier will have to get used to them, his party seems like it’s just getting started.
BY CHRISTOPHER LEWIS
Photo by Mark Stanjo
Loved: Dat voice.
Hated: “MARRRRYYY MEEEEEE HOZZZIIEERRRRRRRR” x 200
Drank: Multiple pints of Mountain Goat Steam Ale.
