Hozier's remarkable 2015 continued yesterday when he joined the all-star line-up celebrating the 50th anniversary of Bob Dylan 'going electric' at the Newport Folk Festival.
What's more, he got to play the actual guitar that The Big Zim performed with half a century ago, and which was bought by Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Isray for the very princely sum of $965,000.
"The sold-out festival put an entertaining show together, using a combination of festival favorites and a few intriguing guests," reports the man from the Providence Journal. "They also had a living link to Dylan’s 1965 show in the person of organist Al Kooper, part of Dylan’s backing band.
"Gillian Welch and David Rawling opened things up, playing acoustic guitars, to sing 'Mr. Tambourine Man' followed by Willie Watson for “All I Really Wanna Do'. The electricity arrived courtesy of the band Dawes - plus Kooper - who played 'Maggie’s Farm', the song that started all that fuss back in 1965. Members of Hozier, plus Klara Soderberg of First Aid Kit, then took the stage for 'Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues'.
"Rhode Island was represented when John McCauley and Ian O’Neil, of Deer Tick, contributed to a raw, raucous version of 'Outlaw Blues'.
An out-of-left-field choice was Robyn Hitchcock, who announced he was going to sing 'possibly the greatest song ever written' before taking on Dylan’s epic 'Visions Of Johanna'.
"The inevitable 'Like A Rolling Stone' had many in the crowd singing along to the 'How does it feeeeeeeeel?' chorus. For the final song, the festival brought out the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which seemed like a downright weird idea until they joined everyone on stage for 'Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35' which is far better known by its chorus: 'Everybody must get stoned'."
Mr. Hozier-Byrne also performed some tunes on the Museum Stage with Alana Henderson, the Belfast singer-songwriter he's toured with extensively in the past.