The sun gods were certainly smiling down on the South Dublin hills for what was, surely, the biggest hometown headliner yet for the Leixlip lad. It certainly made all the difference - a picnic mood prevailed as the late summer rays caressed the crowds, many of them sprawled on blankets spread around the unfamiliarly dry grass. Rice’s audience is a curious mix of up-for-it twenty- and thirty-something females and serious-minded young men with beards, but this was as good-natured a crowd as it gets.
The bill was equally eclectic; earlier Fionn Regan (presumably booked on the early slot before his Mercury nomination) entertained with his whimsical, appealing folk fare, while Willy Mason won new fans with his off-kilter Americana. At odds with the singer-songwriter theme of the day, Guillemots brewed up a bombastic storm, shaking the birds off the Marlay Park trees in the process.
As the numbers swelled, it was up to KT Tunstall to prepare the way for the headliner and entertain she did, with a set-list that included a couple of new songs but mainly concentrated on her huge selling debut Eye To The Telescope. They included ‘Other Side Of The World’ ‘Under The Weather’, the crowd-participating ‘Black Horse And The Cherry Tree’ and the inevitable encore of ‘Suddenly I See’.
Clips from Eyebrowy.com (including several featuring Rice) along with videos of Bob Marley (appropriately enough) preceded the star of the show, eliciting knowing laughs from many.
And then, just as the sun dipped behind the Dublin mountains, a lone figure barely concealing a Cheshire-cat grin strode out from stage-right, picked up a guitar, and launched into an intense ‘The Professor & La Fille Danse’ – arguably the best track from his B-Sides album.
Any doubts that he might not be able to engage a crowd of this magnitude were soon dispelled. Following a sublime ‘Delicate’ and a re-arranged and extended ‘Volcano’, Rice was on a roll which he maintained until the end of this stellar performance. The set list was cleverly paced and included songs from both his albums to date. And while the absence of long time vocal foil Lisa Hannigan was noticeable, it didn’t seem to bother anyone. At one point Rice exhorted the crowds to yell “We love you Lisa” into his mobile phone, which they duly did.
If some of his songs (‘Elephant’ ‘Me My Yoke And I‘) lacked the melodic punch of his best work, they made up for it through the sheer intensity and passion of his vocal performance. Even a relatively obscure number like ‘Dogs’ had them mouthing the words in unison, though unsurprisingly, ‘Cannonball’ and ‘The Blower’s Daughter’ elicited the most ecstatic response.
A by-now beaming Rice led a celebratory encore of ‘Cheers Darlin’ with Fionn Regan, Glen Hansard and what seemed like a cast of thousands sending the hordes into the chilly night air.
The lad done well!