Words by Kate Lockyer
Photography by Elizabeth Sharpe | @ummagummamumma
Irish folk/folk rock bard Damien Rice has mastered the art of intimacy with his audience, something he demonstrated playing to a packed house at The Tivoli in Brisbane on Thursday night. Perhaps that is what attracted such a dedicated group of fans (and tuneful! – more on that later) to his show, despite having released only a handful on songs since his last album in 2014, over 10 years ago. After leaving his band Juniper at the end of the 90s, his single The Blower’s Daughter blew up on the charts in 2001 and he has released three albums since which have evolved in style.
On this particular Thursday evening, the scene was set as soft keys and strings played in a diffused, smoky light. Then, the lights went down, and he emerges behind the piano on a dark stage, starkly illuminated by only a spotlight. It suits the tone of Accidental Babies with its probing piano motif and plaintive lyrics. Rice’s music is like pressing on a bruise, asking a lover all the things that usually are too painful to say out loud. That said, there are some lyrics from this that I really loved, like “Is he dark enough to see your light?” and “does he drive you wild, or just mildly free?”
Still dimly lit, this time by a warmer tone, Rice pulls on his acoustic to play Amie, pensive and sweet. “Amie, come sit on my wall / And tell me the story of O”, he sings, the melody like the familiar rocking of a childhood swing set. The light glows from behind him in the second chorus with rays growing around him, like he is standing in the sunrise. It is quite a spectacular effect. Amie merges into Sex Change, where things get darker, and louder, with distortion on the guitar – he bends over to sing, in communion with his guitar, the final lines “I need to move and you’re in my way”.
Rice pauses to take in the venue, which was looking more like a theatre than ever, having set out chairs for the occasion to allow a seated audience. The building is almost 100 years old, but became a theatre in the 80s, modelled on a famous French cabaret theatre which has given the building its beautiful art deco features. “I like this place, I feel like I’m in the 40s, driving around with Nina Simone,” Rice says.
Francisca Barreto comes out onstage then to play cello throughout the set. The next song is Delicate, an excoriatingly intimate song with lyrics like “So why do you fill my sorrow / With the words you’ve borrowed / From the only place that you’ve known? / And why do you sing Hallelujah / If it means nothing to ya?”. The cello comes in during the chorus, like a trembling sigh. When Rice ramps up in intensity near the end of the song, belting with less of the softness usually present in his vocals, I can tell the crowd has felt this. The light brightens in the chorus, mirroring his force.
At the start of Volcano, the audience perked up in their seats, clearly a crowd favourite. The song slowly builds throughout the song, the guitar softly thudding away underneath like a heartbeat. Like magma spilling over the landscape, Rice and Barreto sing over one another, coming in and out of each other’s lines as the stage lights up in red.
A more upbeat strum for the next song has everyone nodding along in Coconut Skins. It is wry yet uplifting, like the advice a sardonic uncle might provide. “You can brave decisions / Before you crumble up inside / Spend your time asking everyone else’s permission / Then run away and hide / You can sit on chimneys / With some fire up your ass / No need to know what you’re doing or waiting for,” he sings, implying that the only thing you can really do in life is take action. The audience claps along and Barreto percusses away with egg shakers as she harmonises.
Rice swaps guitars and an unsettlingly song is treated with unsettling lights. Green and bright white light is shone from his feet into his face, giving the impression of a scary story told with a torch shone under your chin for Woman Like a Man. I’m not sure how to feel about the song, but the performance was very cool and I like to think he is deconstructing the expectations of masculinity which have in turn been passed onto women in the modern world. A buzzy affectation on the mic and reverberating drums played over the speakers add to the effect of flashing lights across the stage, perhaps standing in for some sort of breakdown over those expectations – “You wanna get a room like no-one else / You wanna be rich / You wanna be kitsch / You wanna be the bastard of yourself.” Rice then takes a minute to catch his breath which prompts the crowd to cheer.
He tells an anecdote about how he recorded his first pieces of music – without the right equipment, he was recording a demo of Older Chest for a friend, and needed a mic stand, so (he demonstrated), he took a shoe off, crouched over, and put the microphone in his shoe to hold it.
“Something I learned from this process is there is something beautiful about music that it teaches me over and over, that when I’m trying too hard… often I get in the way of the flow,” he said.
Though he said he didn’t put any effort into this record, “just threw it down”, he said when he eventually got some good mics and tried to rerecord it, he couldn’t get the same quality as the first take, and so that is the version that’s on the album. Older Chests is magical with the addition of the cello and he sings it bent over his shoe in true commitment to the bit.
Cello leads the next song, a beautiful track about embracing someone for who they are. Purple lighting and a velvety harmony from Barreto in the last chorus create a soft blanket of acceptance in I Don’t Want to Change You.
He fiddled with his guitar for a moment and said, “I don’t know”. A typical impulsive artist, he doesn’t plan his setlist but decides in the moment which song to do next. In the lull, people called out songs they’d like to hear.
Rice admitted that most of his songs are written in times of distress, saying “when everything’s pretty good, I’m just doing shit like other people, whatever that might be, then when something happens that I consider to be distressing in that moment… then very often it’s a great release when you’ve got that feeling inside that is so ugly and powerful, taking you over… a song, a guitar is a great tool that almost becomes an addiction sometimes, where the feeling of getting over a horrible feeling through a song can be very exhilarating. It’s a little bit like a drug, because you go from feeling so low to getting a song done…”
His cheeky nature comes out then as he says, “…So, that’s why most of the songs are sad, I’m not actually sad, probably you’re more sad than me because you want to listen to them.”
Trusty and True is one song that doesn’t have that desperation, he said, like the previous song. The cello soars in this song, picking up where Rice finishes in the chorus. A gorgeous heartwarming moment comes in this song when he invites the audience to join in at the end, singing, “Come, let yourself be wrong / Come, it’s already begun” and we sing in canon with him and Barreto, in what has to be some of the nicest, most in tune, in time audience participation I’ve seen at a concert. Bravo, Damien Rice fans.
“While we’re on the seam of songs that are not entirely depressing, let’s do this one. It’s newish, it’s unreleased,” he said by way of introduction for the next song. From the slow draw of bow across the string is added the piano accordion, which Rice plays crouched on the other side of the stage this time. These instruments create an echoey, spacey feel which mirrors the theme of the song as he sings, “I can be your astronaut if you want some space.”
After some banter with the crowd and a promise to play one patron’s favourite, My Favourite Faded Fantasy, just as soon as Geoff the crew member retunes the guitar, he plays another request, Elephant. Enigmatically lit with low light, as he has been through throughout the performance, he sings this song which is delightfully dissonant in places.
Then he plays a new song, which Rice says is the second time playing it. “It’s not finished yet but I’m going to play it with you just to get some ideas,” he says. Onto the electric guitar with a tender, light touch, while the plucked cello fills out the bass, he sings a song which seems to be encouraging someone to get through a dark time, with lyrics like “Don’t you wanna feel / Don’t you wanna heal / In other ways / For better days,” which he also gets us to sing at the end.
He thanks his crew for being ready for whichever song he does next, before playing My Favourite Faded Fantasy with its minor chords, very stripped back, his voice is almost with the cadence of speech in some points. “I ain’t never loved,” is the point in the song where it almost turns to a fantastic nightmare, with crashing drums again and a distorted guitar.
For Cannonball, they both pick up a guitar this time, admitting this is the first time they’ve tried that. A singalong ensues – this one unprompted. “It’s hard to fall, when you fall like a cannonball,” they sing reflectively, like there is a shadow self still to follow behind.
“It’s our last night in Australia so we’ll make an exception and do what we’re told – it’s not a musician’s job to do what they’re told, you know,” Rice jokes. 9 Crimes sees him seated behind the piano and he plays an intro, but when the lyrics come in it is Barreto who sings first, suddenly illuminated in the spotlight, sitting in the middle of the stage. She throws back to him for the second verse, and this duet feels like we’re witnessing a raw conversation between lovers.
Almost with a sense of good natured, teasing reluctance, he grabs his guitar to sit on the edge of the stage, as if he has come to join us. “And so it is…” he sings The Blower’s Daughter with his well-known and loved tone. It sounds like the familiar call of birds at sunset, the first page you turn on re-reading a well-thumbed book, your loved one’s voice when they offer you a cup of tea. Barreto sings the bridge, almost like she is responding to his call.
After a long, long applause, they re-emerge onstage to sing Behind Those Eyes, standing together at the front of the stage. “Who are you with when there’s no taking sides / Tell me who is behind those eyes,” they sing in harmony. Once more the audience is invited into the song, singing along with a “da da da” section.
Looking around, I can see and feel the connection Damien Rice’s audience has with him and his music and the gracious way he creates room for emotion in his performance, and when the audience stands for their final ovation, I can see how he has earned it.
This was Damien Rice’s final appearance on Australian shores for this tour – New Zealand can catch him when he arrives in just a few days time for what will surely be 3 very special shows:
SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY
Bruce Mason Centre | Auckland, NZ (Lic. All Ages)
ticketmaster.co.nz
THURSDAY 13 FEBRUARY
James Hay Theatre | Christchurch, NZ (Lic. All Ages)
ticketek.co.nz
Thanks to Frontier Touring
