Review: Hozier @ Adelaide Entertainment Centre
Hozier is always devoting himself to something greater. And on Friday night, he invited the devotees in attendance to do the same.
Words by Emily Wilson // Photo by Ruthless Imagery
“Thank the tall Irishman, he’s the one who brought me here,” says American singer-songwriter Joy Oladokun as they open for Hozier on the Adelaide stopover of his Unreal Unearth tour.
Solitary in dusty mauve lighting, Oladokun is gentle voiced in song and in stage banter. Their songwriting is earnest; they are a consummate vocalist. Alone with their guitar, they sing sweetly of journeying through pain to self-discovery – it’s a fitting set-up for the tall Irishman who is about to grace the stage with his iconic unruly mop of hair.
When he does appear – to the absolute frothing excitement of the crowd – Hozier has a quiet, gentle charisma about him. Somehow, as he deftly plucks at his guitar strings, he toes the line between a musical presence that is moody and electric. He sings the outro of his first song of the set, ‘De Selby Part 1,’ in Gaeilge, English subtitles blinking on the screens to the left and right of him, which immediately sets the tone for his show.
Hozier is characterised as an artist by his political conscience. Three of his biggest hits, all of which he played on Friday night at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, are deeply political. There is ‘Cherry Wine’: the plaintive ballad that narrativizes a man’s experience of domestic abuse at the hands of a woman, which he played alone on a substage in the middle of the audience during his encore. The majority of the concertgoers, phone flashlights held aloft, sang along to the story of a man who is clearly unable to view the treatment he is subjected to as obscene – a character who whispers wretchedly that his abuser is like “sleep to the freezing.”
Then there is ‘Eat Your Young,’ a song that condemns the gluttony of empire, making clear reference to Jonathan Swift’s 1729 satirical essay A Modest Proposal, which suggests that the poverty-stricken Irish ease their own suffering by selling their excess children as food to the wealthy. The lyrics render the conceit of the song salient: “Seven new ways that you can eat your young / Come and get some / Sinking the children for a war drum / Putting food on the table selling bombs and guns / It’s quicker and easier to eat your young.”
And then, of course, there is his standout mega-hit ‘Take Me To Church.’ Though the song that made him famous is more than a decade old now, Hozier sings it like it is brand new. The 2013 music video – which is an explicit critique of Russia’s anti-LGBT policy – flickers on the screen behind him while various set pieces burst into hypothetical flame.
‘Take Me To Church’ has been embraced by the LGBT+ community as a queer anthem and rallying protest song. At the close of the track, Hozier hung a trans pride flag across his microphone stand, emblazoned with the line from the song, “I was born sick, but I love it.”
After introducing and thanking his entire band, Joy Oladokun for her opening set, and then his entire crew and all the crucial people behind the scenes, he rounds off an approximately two-hour set with a discussion of his position as an Irishman in the grander context of colonialism, which he transitions into a condemnation of Israel’s current treatment of the people of Palestine. Hozier calls for an immediate ceasefire, for an “end to occupation,” and for the Palestinian people to be able to experience “the urgent right to self-determination.”
For the final song of his set, he invites Joy Oladokun back onto the stage and together they perform ‘Work Song.’ This track is one of the clearest indications of the influence that the blues and spirituals have had on Hozier’s music. It also encapsulates the theme that is perhaps most crucial to his body of work: devotion. Onstage and in writing, Hozier is always devoting himself to something greater. And on Friday night, he invited the devotees in attendance to do the same.
