HOZIER – OLYMPIA 2TH JULY 2015

Thursday 2th July 2015, Olympia Theâtre, Paris

Well, I can’t say he’s the arrogant type. Actually, out of all the words of the whole of the English language, arrogant would be the least appropriate to describe him. I would say he’s more of a… warm person. Yes, that whole experience was overall warm. (that sounded much less weird in my head)

The whole warm thing was on multiple different levels:

1) His personality. Imagine a cupcake, strawberry and vanilla, with more cream icing than it would be safe to put on there, extra sprinkles and a glass of fresh milk: that’s Hozier. Wait, no, sorry; make that cupcake irish.

He is just the sweetest person ever. I can’t count how many times he thanked the audience, his band, his friends, his managers… He even managed to personally thank, out loud, every single person that was on his tour.

2) His music and his band. It all was totally put together and seamless in a really rough way – I’m not sure that makes sense – but it was so natural and just… out there. I couldn’t have enjoyed anything more than those few songs he and his great band (Keyboard, two backing singers, bass, drummer).

3) The atmosphere the crowd and the venue. Half of the audience was a bunch of old prunes sucking the extremely hot air out of the place with their profoundly annoying disapproving glances and grimaces. The second half, on the other hand, was a gang of enthusiastic music lovers, most of them probably irish or english (a series of boisterous cheers at every moment Hozier mentioned where he comes from can vouch for that).

4) The heat (approximatively 45 degrees in that room).  Attending a Hozier concert in a boiler would probably have been less hot. Oh well, it was a very, very nice alternative to a heating appliance.

All in all (and on a more serious note) it was a wonderful and intimate experience, where an artist honestly exposed his pure and soulful music to an audience, proudly flaunting his emotions and thoughts to the world. Isn’t that what music is about after all?

HOZIER – WORK SONG – LEAVES ME SPEECHLESS

hozier

A steady rythm, a simple melody, some subtle humming in the background: that’s all Hozier needs to orchestrate an utterly powerful anthem of passion.

I strongly believe that love is the only thing that death cannot break, something higher than human understanding that cannot be explained with any form of science or rational thinking. This upcoming irish singer-songwriter apparently thinks the same. In “Work Song”, he explores the links between the two extremes of life: love and death, which are empowered by his brilliant art of suggesting things without naming them.

“No grave can hold my body down, I’ll crawl home to her”

Another important aspect of this song to me, is the connection between the title “Work Song” and actual work songs, sung to get through the terribly hard days of work in the era of Afro-American slavery. He sounds like he is laboring for his love, as it is the only thing he looks forward to, thanks to the very simple rythm, which adds depth to the whole thing.

In a nutshell, Hozier describes the power of love with such a transcending edge: deeply moving and sincere.