There were a couple brief moments during Damien Rice’s sold-out performance at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on Friday night where the attention of nearly 6,000 wasn’t held squarely in his hands. The first was when he raised a toast to the Greek (whose opening night was being hosted by Rice) and all the behind-the-scenes employees who make concerts possible. The second moment was stranger, when during the closing song, “Long Long Way”, a crowd member was invited to join Rice on stage and help sing, creating a comedic and triumphant conclusion to the show as the random dude impressed with both his confidence and enthusiasm.
But for the rest of the evening, all eyes and ears were on Rice. An eight-year absence from performing in Los Angeles was broken last year upon the release of his acclaimed third album, My Favourite Faded Fantasy, but it was clear from both the turnout and the crowd reactions that appetite for Rice’s presence is still high. Stray “I love you’s” could be heard at any musical break, “Volcano” incited a mid-set standing ovation from a portion of fans, and one audience member delivered Rice a jacket before main set closer “I Remember” after Rice joked to have to end the set because he was cold. As the night was the close of this leg of Rice’s touring, the audience seemed dead set on making him feel loved.
Ideas of love, sadness, and what audiences expect when they see Rice were all played with over the course of 130 minutes of music and stories, with Rice cracking wise on subjects from buying condoms at a young age to masturbating in a friend’s bed to his turning away from his Catholic upbringing. With music that could be classified as overly sentimental by some, Rice’s personality balanced any musical sensitivity with crudity and humor. “People who write sad songs are often happy people, and vice versa,” Rice commented early on, “and I feel like people sometimes come to see me wanting to be depressed, and that’s not what they get.”
And when he wasn’t impressing with his stage presence and wit, Rice captivated through song. “Volcano” saw the songwriter teaching the audience three distinct harmonies, plus percussive elements of increasing intensity, plus a warning that the tempo would also gradually speed up. Still, it created one of the more successful audience participation moments in recent memory if only because so much faith was put in the crowd. And while older songs like “Amie” and “9 Crimes” were clear fan favorites, it was the newer songs that shone brightest. “It Takes a Lot to Know a Man” found Rice singing into his guitar pickup, looping sounds, and even going maximal with guitar distortion (making his tease of Korn’s “Blind” not as weird as it sounds on paper). It was a stunning mid-set inclusion and argued that the recent track is among his best. Another newer song, “Trusty and True”, saw Rice kneeling as if in prayer, though the song was explicitly about believing in nothing. It was a strange, beautiful dichotomy, coming close to the traditional music of his heritage while in the same breath questioning the ideology that his upbringing instilled.
Rice’s disappearance from the spotlight in recent years might have steered people to think that he had lost his taste for performing, but Friday night’s set showed that to not be the case at all. As just a single man with a guitar, Rice was able to enthrall the audience and seemed to have a blast in doing so. His songs are only a portion of the personality that audiences hear on record, and then Damien Rice rounds out the musician, making the live experience essential for anyone who considers himself or herself a fan.
Setlist:
The Professor & La Fille Danse
I Don’t Want to Change You
Elephant
9 Crimes
Delicate
Amie
Volcano
It Takes a Lot to Know a Man
Trusty and True
Colour Me In
I Remember
Encore
The Greatest Bastard
The Blower’s Daughter
Long Long Way
