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HOZIER SETLIST
De Selby (Part 1) Encore: JOY OLADOKUN SETLIST Taking Things for Granted
Keeping the Light On Changes sunday / One of Us (Joan Osborne cover snippet) Somebody Like Me Drugs We’re All Gonna Die look up HOZIER TOUR DATES
AUG 10 BOK Center Tulsa, OK
AUG 13 Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre Maryland Heights, MO AUG 14 Pinnacle Bank Arena Lincoln, NE AUG 16 Breese Stevens Field Madison, WI AUG 17 Xcel Energy Center Saint Paul, MN AUG 20 Canada Life Centre Winnipeg, Canada AUG 21 Sasktel Centre Saskatoon, Canada AUG 23 Scotiabank Saddledome Calgary, Canada AUG 24 Rogers Place Edmonton, Canada AUG 27 First Interstate Arena Billings, MT AUG 28 Ford Wyoming Center Casper, WY AUG 30 Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre Greenwood Village, CO AUG 31 First Credit Union Amphitheatre West Valley City, UT SEP 3 Ford Idaho Center Arena Nampa, ID SEP 4 Hayden Homes Amphitheater Bend, OR SEP 6 Gorge Amphitheatre Quincy, WA SEP 7 RV Inn Style Resorts Amphitheater Ridgefield, WA SEP 9 Golden 1 Center Sacramento, CA SEP 10 Shoreline Amphitheatre Mountain View, CA SEP 13 Tucson Arena Tucson, AZ SEP 14 North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre Chula Vista, CA SEP 17 Kia Forum Inglewood, CA SEP 18 Kia Forum Inglewood, CA SEP 20 Kia Forum Inglewood, CA SEP 21 iHeartRadio Music Festival Las Vegas, NV SEP 22 Isleta Amphitheater Albuquerque, NM SEP 24 Frost Bank Center San Antonio, TX SEP 25 Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion The Woodlands, TX SEP 26 Paycom Center Oklahoma City, OK SEP 28 Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival Franklin, TN SEP 29 All Things Go Columbia, MD NOV 5 RAC Arena Perth, Australia NOV 6 RAC Arena Perth, Australia NOV 8 The Drive North Adelaide, Australia NOV 10 Torquay Common Torquay, Australia NOV 12 Sidney Myer Music Bowl Melbourne, Australia NOV 13 Sidney Myer Music Bowl Melbourne, Australia NOV 15 Qudos Bank Arena Sydney, Australia NOV 16 Roche Estate Pokolbin, Australia NOV 18 Riverstage Brisbane City, Australia NOV 20 Spark Arena Auckland, New Zealand NOV 22 Wolfbrook Arena Christchurch, New Zealand NOV 23 Wolfbrook Arena Christchurch, New Zealand Read More
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One of the most popular voices from Ireland came to the heartland as folk-rock singer-songwriter Hozier played a long sold-out show in front of 18,000 fans outdoors at Azura Amphitheater in Bonner Springs, KS, just west of Kansas City.
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The evening began with the pleasant surprise of a support set from Nashville via Arizona folk/pop/roots singer-songwriter Joy Oladokun, still in support of full-length, Living Proof (out via Verve/Forecast/Republic). (If we read the poster closer, we’d have known that Canadian Allison Russell was only opening the first set of dates of the tour).
We’d seen the singer headline last year at The Truman in Kansas City so were familiar, and the thirty-five-minute performance began with Oladokun demurely introducing herself and the band by saying, “Hi, I’m Joy. These are my friends- they’re very weird and we’re going to play some songs together” before launching into “Taking Things for Granted”, a song we knew from previous, was about a childhood birthday experience.
Like previous, Oladokun re-enforced how any change does not wear well- even the little things apparently as the name change of the HBO Max streaming service to simply “Max”, was enough to disgruntle the singer, prefacing the fact before the song, “Changes”.
Neil Young was a musical inspiration for “sunday”, a song which was combined with a verse or two from Joan Osborne’s modern classic, “One of Us” and the Weezer-influenced “We’re All Gonna Die” usually finishes the set, but they wisely changed things up to finish with the message of positivity in “look up”- reminding the audience to value the smallest beautiful things in life, and that you, and your loved ones all matter in this world.
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The third and latest album from Newcastle, Ireland folk rock singer-songwriter Hozier (aka Andrew Hozier-Byrne) is titled Unreal Unearth (via Rubyworks/Island/Columbia) and unreal has to be the perfect word for the singer’s return to the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist after debuting with hit single, “Take Me to Church” more than a decade ago.
The recent album has topped the charts in the US, UK and his native Ireland among other places, and current single “Too Sweet” is everywhere- crossing formats and on the radio constantly at the moment.
We caught him last in 2019, pre-pandemic and selling out the 2181 capacity State Theatre in Minneapolis. Flash-forward a few years, and he’s playing in venues that hold six times that size (like this one) and is still selling them out – unreal!
The spanning two-hour set began as the new record does, with “De Selby (Parts 1 and 2)”, an ethereal set of tracks inspired by a character in a Flann O’Brien novel that explores darkness as a connection, and ended with Hozier singing in his native Irish, as a canopy of projected evening stars surrounded he and his eight-piece band.
The projections behind the stage were massive and mostly composed of scenes and elements found in nature, while Hozier himself seems to have barely aged in the last decade, staying the same- tall height, similar hairstyle, and with the same wardrobe of a plain jean jacket and pants.
The rabid crowd got a taste of new music with the anti-war song, “Nobody’s Soldier” from the upcoming “Unaired” EP (out this week) which reveals three songs mostly inspired by the poet Dante’s “Inferno” that were written for the full-length but didn’t make it. They're described as “"songs that might have made it to the circles of gluttony, limbo, violence, and the outward 'ascent' respectively” according to the artist.
He’d take time to marvel at the size of the crowd, which stretched all the way up the hill on the grass, also reading the high-held sign of someone concussed but still attending and gave a shout-out to someone’s dad. He was proud enough of his sharp band to introduce them twice; once following hit “Almost (Sweet Music)” from sophomore album Wasteland, Baby! and again during the encore.
Mega radio hit, “Too Sweet” from the addendum Unheard EP was unceremoniously slipped into the setlist about two-thirds through, with Hozier casually thanking everyone for his first Number One in seven countries, including the US. Call it the Irish humble brag, as almost every other artist would play their biggest song last and extend it into something three-times its original length, for no good reason.
The new album’s lead single, “Eat Your Young” found many in the crowd trying to mimic the falsetto vocal on the track and 2019 single, “Movement” had all 18,000 clapping along to the beat which continued as the main set would end with his 2013 breakout single, “Take Me to Church.”
One of the earliest songs he wrote, “Cherry Wine” began the encore as the 6’6” singer emerged to play it acoustically from a platform at the mixing board, situated halfway up the venue’s hill. He stayed put and switched back to electric for “Unknown/Nth” from the new record, as the band gradually returned to their positions to help finish the song with volume.
A prefacing speech to the social anthem “Nina Cried Power” (originally a collab with Mavis Staples) had the artist speaking out strongly about social, political, and global issues; mostly encouraging peace, tolerance, the need for protest, and why we’re all much more similar, than different. In Staples’ place, touring singer Melissa McMillan completely tore the house down vocally.
2014’s “Work Song” would end the evening, with the singer ever appreciative to his band, crew, local staff, and support act, and he brought Joy Oladokun back out to help sing the song about a hard life and imperfect love that in the end, redeems all.
“When you move, I’m moved” Hozier sang on his 2019 single, “Movement” and the same could be said for the sold-out 18,000 in attendance that shrieked, cheered, and swooned with his every verse and gesture. If his crowd keeps multiplying exponentially as it has, we could very well be seeing him in stadiums next time.
(All Photos by BRANDON CLASEN Click on any image to enlarge and see in full)
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| JohnC ♥ johnc@weheartmusic.com ♥ X / twitter.com |
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