The Igloo - Montreal

from the Montreal Gazette:

The signs pasted to Metropolis’s doors Friday night gave notice that the venue’s bars would be closed when the show started, by Damien Rice’s request. Good thing the Irish singer had his own stock backstage.

If Rice had done what he no doubt set out to do at his first Montreal gig in seven years — a two-hour set, give or take, including maybe a three-song encore — this still would have been an immensely inspiring show. Up until around 10:30, Rice had sweetened his self-flagellation with warmth and wry humour. It was special, not just for coming after his long hiatus from public life, but for the heart and soul of one man with one guitar.

What we ended up getting wasn’t just special, but unrepeatable. By the time Rice finally left the stage, more than 3 1/2 hours after he began, he had turned one of the concert events of the year into one of the concert events of a lifetime.

It all hinged on Cheers Darlin’ and two bottles of red wine. But the journey to get there was a wonder of its own.

It’s hard to overstate the pent-up adoration that was unleashed when Rice ambled out under the simplest of lighting. Before he more or less walked away from his career in 2007, by all accounts feeling like the business had overwhelmed the music, the singer’s wounded romanticism had been held dear by a rapt following. His absence intensified that longing. (And not just on the night — this show was an instant sellout.)

He was as we remembered him, building Elephant from a whisper to a lacerating cry and back again. He summoned the drive of a full band in Woman Like a Man, and brought a mostly standing-room hall to a hush with Delicate and Older Chests (no doubt the reason behind the closed-bar advisory). 9 Crimes was especially poignant, until Rice chanted at length into his guitar’s sound hole and savaged his weather-beaten instrument, gleefully dismantling the beauty that came before.

It was only after eight songs that Rice addressed the crowd. Surely getting more hoots and hollers than he does in soft-seaters, he chuckled: “You guys have been drinking too much. Gimme a moment to catch up.” That was some serious foreshadowing, but for now he stopped at a bit of sake.

He took the time to acknowledge a fan’s offering of a book, gave sincere thanks, and one remembered how gifted Rice is at playing to each person in the room instead of a faceless horde. His conversation went beyond mere banter, and little if any of it seemed rehearsed. A stark reading of The Box was given a preface to do with poisonous acquaintances, which in turn had its own preface: “We all have friends. Well … maybe we don’t all have friends. If you don’t, I recommend taking up songwriting. It’s a great way to get your sadness out.”

The Blower’s Daughter was elevated by an unexpected mariachi-style intro and the audience’s en-masse understudy for former collaborator Lisa Hannigan. This was sacred music, before Volcano closed the main set with some true grit and a comically complicated but flawlessly executed crowd-participation vocal.

An especially tender Amie was followed by the profane cri de cœur of Rootless Tree. It could have ended there, but this was the final night of the tour. Some sort of celebration was in order. Whether Cheers Darlin’ was impromptu or not (and recent set lists suggest it was), Rice opened a can of worms when he set up a table, called out for some wine and brought a young fan named Angélique on stage to help him enact the late-night song’s extended barroom drama.

After some heroic power-drinking, Angélique somehow found her feet and made her way back to the floor. Meanwhile, Rice fought his better instincts, and we won.

“I should really get off the stage,” he muttered, fumbling with his guitar and, once he confirmed he could “still kind of play,” deciding to move out of the light and to the lip of the stage for an unmiked Cannonball. The wine didn’t dull its passion.

By all semi-reasonable expectation, that would have marked last call. Instead, Rice took heed of a request for Trusty and True, played a few notes, paused and, what the hell, invited several dozen fans on stage to back him up. (Kudos to the woman who grabbed some of the leftover wine before joining the choir.)

Again, anyone with less alcohol intake than Rice surely expected that to be the big finale. But another request, another mention of this being the tour’s final night, and Rice found himself presenting the live debut of It Takes a Lot to Know a Man, an intricate standout from the new album My Favourite Faded Fantasy. It was less than note-perfect, but was hardly a mess. And despite the claim that “if I hadn’t been drunk, I would have said I don’t know it,” there was at least as much bravery as booze involved in the spur-of-the-moment open rehearsal. Even playtime is taken seriously by Rice.

Somewhere around that time, Rice acknowledged the lack of professionalism, and the lack of complaints: “If anyone here is reviewing the show, it ended 30 minutes ago. Now we’re just hanging out.” He reminisced about opening for Leonard Cohen in Dublin. He kept checking in on Angélique. (“You haven’t thrown up on anyone yet?”) He kept draining the remainder of the wine. And he broke the news that he’s playing Théâtre St-Denis in April, to the surprise of everyone wondering why Montreal was left off of a more extensive North American tour booked for next spring. (Assuming the date didn’t fall through without Rice being informed, April 10 looks like the most likely hole to be filled in his itinerary.) There were a number of rarities, each prefaced with a vow that it would be the last song. Each time, there were laughs and looks of disbelief in the crowd that this was actually happening.

Sometime around midnight, Rice did a mental calculation. “This might not be the longest concert I’ve ever done, but it’s certainly the most elongated.” More shouted requests, answered with good-natured “f— you”s before Rice settled on I Remember for his final, 100%, absolutely for real this time parting song. It was raw, it was powerful, it was slightly botched, it was ridiculously late, and it was absolutely worth the seven-year wait.

Damien Rice’s set list:

Elephant
Woman Like a Man
Delicate
My Favourite Faded Fantasy
Older Chests
I Don’t Want to Change You
9 Crimes
The Greatest Bastard
The Professor et la fille danse
The Box
The Blower’s Daughter
Volcano
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Colour Me In
Amie
Rootless Tree
Cheers Darlin’
Cannonball
Trusty and True

It Takes a Lot to Know a Man
Baby Sister
Back to Her Man
Me, My Yoke and I
I Remember

jzivitz@montrealgazette.com