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Bashfully, the lead singer quips to the buzzing crowd “You’re here for the forest father, so we will assume you are big fans of religious trauma, this one’s about catholic guilt! “ which has the crowd howling, and their set full of of heartfelt and fiery female folk gets a massive reception.
Hozier – who is hailed as the Forest Father – lives up to his name with a stage set up adorned with autumnal imagery and bare branches draped above his head.
In his bone dry Irish accent he dead pans to a packed arena “You feeling good? Well I’ll change that, I’ll make this Friday feel like a double Monday!”, his delivery making everyone roar with laughter. He is unassuming and humble, yet the considerably large female fraternity tonight whistle hysterically at him like he’s a wild Jim Morrison.
Cherry Wine, one of the first songs he released ten years ago, has Hozier alone on the stage with a simple red light illuminating him and a stunning sea of phone camera lights reflecting around the arena, the crowd singing the final chorus back to him in a truly spine tingling moment tonight.
In his dry tone he announces “ I’m going to cheer you all up with a song about a memory of seeing an animal who had been hit by a car” when introducing his song Abstract, which is a fan favourite.
His vocal range with falsetto in the unsettling Eat Your Young from his latest album Unreal Unearth is utterly mesmerising, the song lyrically one of his most genius to date.
Take Me To Church whips up a phenomenal furore of excitement, the anguished line ‘I’ll tell you my sins, and you can sharpen your knife” sung with a raw anguish that stirs the soul.
For the encore, Work Song closes the set, the poetic simplicity of lines such as “I’m so full of love I could barely eat”is suzh with a hypnotic quality that defines his genius throughout a sublime performance.
