Oxfam Tsunami relief show in the TBMC, Dublin

Though a charity gig hardly makes for the perfect barometer, it is still perpetually astounding to note the evolution (or devolution?) of Damien Rice’s live audiences. Although Rice’s army of ardent fans are also out in force, the Temple Bar Music Centre is populated in part by after-work revellers, and the type of teenagers who tend to buy idiotic ringtones.
Paradoxially, while his crowd appears to have become more diverse, Rice has abandoned his coffee-house acoustic sound for something entirely more uncompromising. In fact, the nicely experimental effects that now polish his beloved repertoire would impress even the most ardent Sigur Ros fan.
Seemingly eager to seperate himself from the acoustic flotsam, Rice has embellished the sedate quietness of ‘I Remember’ and ‘Volcano’ with perfectly shambolic climaxes. Quite how Rice’s new brand of drone-driven melancholia works in those American sold-out theatres is another thing entirely, but tonight, the whole effect is little short of mesmerising. Even Lisa Hannigan appears to have bloomed from an unassuming, fidgeting performer into a woman with fire in her throat and a luminous stage presence that is blinding at close range.
Against the backdrop of twinkling fairy lights, tracks like ‘Older Chests’ and ‘The Professor’ sound charmingly inviting, while ‘Cold Water’, performed entirely in the dark, silences both audience and irritating ringtone alike, offering a stark but elegant rumination on the unthinkable disaster of recent days.
From the look of things, Rice’s audiences seem perfectly happy to bathe in this new-found intensity and experimental bent. Very few artists, it must be said, get to be themselves and are loved unconditionally for it – all in all, it’s not bad going for the guy who once gave it all up to become a Tuscan farmer.