Damien Rice, Fionn Regan @ TheTivoli, Brisbane 25/02/07

Sun 4th Mar, 2007 in Gig Reviews

On Sunday the 25th of February 2007 Costin Street the Valley was lined with eager punters queued to witness the brilliance that is Damien Rice at The Tivoli, Brisbane. Disappointed they were not, with Rice delivering a mammoth two and a half hour set to a surprisingly rambunctious crowd.




The indelible Fionn Regan opened the show with an all too brief half hour set. He took to the stage solo, guitar in hand, and delivered a simple yet memorable acoustic performance featuring his best known tunes Be Good or Be Gone and Penny in the Slot. Regan’s beautiful melodies, reminiscent of Rice’s own musical style, quickly won him a bevy of fans some of which were, up until that point, unfamiliar with his work.




When Rice took to the stage bars closed and focus was squared solely on him and his diverse band consisting of Lisa Hannigan (vocals), Vyvienne Long (cello) and Shane Fitzsimons (bass). A notable absence was percussionist Tom Osander who according to Rice was unable to join them due to some “stuff” he is dealing with. Nonetheless his band of misfits had the crowd totally engrossed.




Rice opened with the hauntingly beautiful The Professor and La Fille Danse demonstrating not only his musical genius but also his grasp of the French language. The crowd went off to tunes such as Me, My Yoke and I and Woman Like a Man where distorted vocals and guitars featured heavily. At times The Tivoli erupted into a massive sing-a-long almost drowning out Rice when he unleashed his popular tunes Amie and Rat within the Grain. The highlights of the performance where Coconut Skins, Volcanos and Eskimo where the room was littered with snowflake fragments of light that beautifully complemented the heart wrenching song. Nearing the end of the night Rice sang his melancholy tune Cold Water for almost its entirety in complete darkness, then at the height of the song blasted the audience with blinding light. If you were able to look very closely you could see a wry smile momentarily cross Damien’s lips hinting at a cheeky personality behind his sorrowful music.




Lisa Hannigan’s vocals as always complemented Rice’s devastatingly beautiful songs. Her almost introverted performance, hands clutched together, head bowed, matched her naïve yet angelic vocal delivery and melted the hearts of everyone who had the honour of being there. In contrast to all we had seen of Lisa so far she tentatively downed wine directly from the bottle as the band toasted the end of their Australian tour near the end of the evening.




Cellist Vyvienne Long injected some comic relief into the evening singing, On the Radio accompanied by Paul on piano. Though you wouldn’t necessarily call her vocal styling brilliant, you would call her performance highly entertaining as her wry sense of humour captured the crowd’s heart.




Rice’s performance was typically peppered with banter and explanations of song origins. The man himself however seemed to be in low spirits for the first half of the evening, perhaps tired given his gruelling tour schedule, and despite his efforts to appear otherwise the crowd were possibly robbed of meeting the fun and mischievous man behind the poignant music who apparently was in fine form at other Australian shows. One moment that was conceivably a little mean spirited was a point when he singled out one particular woman taking a photograph dedicating a song to her about not being in the moment. He sang the graces of modern technology and the photographic capability of mobile phones “but” he said, “not at the fucking gig” to which he received moderate applause. According to Rice by taking time out to photograph the gig you are losing the experience, the moment, which is a valid enough point but I wonder if Rice has become a little too disconnected from his audience to appreciate their motives. Perhaps it has been too long since Rice has been so moved and captivated by a performer that in order to preserve and share the memory you attempt to capture it in anyway, be it by live recording, ticket stubs or photograph. Nonetheless camera numbers reduced and only a few brave souls dared discharge their flashbulbs from that point on.




Despite this little outburst spirits did lift on stage and Rice invited Fionn Regan back on stage to play with them, delegating Regan to the piano, an instrument we were to learn is far from his forte. Searching for songs in A minor Regan would be familiar with Rice eventually settled on an inspired rendition of Portishead’s Glory Box and called for a piano solo from Regan which delighted the crowd but seemed a little embarrassing for Regan. He eventually snuck off stage towards the end of the lengthy song, head bowed, hand covering his eyes and a smile sneaking out beneath his fingers.




The night ended on a high with Rice taking a poll for which song to play for his encore, an off the cuff approach to song choice that seems to be a constant and refreshing method in developing his set list. The crowd requested Sand and Elephant but the worldwide hit Blowers Daughter won out in the end. Rice played the original version and didn’t deviate into Radiohead’s Creep as he has sometimes been known to do. This was neither here nor there; the show in its entirety, camera comments and all, was superb. The man is a genius and it is little wonder his gigs sell out so quickly.




A Damien Rice gig is like a massage for the soul, it pulls your head and you heart in a million different directions and when it is over you feel like you have been touched by something so great there are just no words to describe the bliss you have just experienced. So if you missed out this time be sure to catch his next tour of Australia, which according to Rice may be sooner than we think and quiet possibly before the year is out (just remember not to take any photo’s).