Hozier
Electric Picnic, Main Stage
★★★★
It’s six years since Hozier sealed his arrival as a new superstar of Irish rock by headlining Electric Picnic. He returns to the festival as an artist renewed, having achieved a hit as seismic as his breakout song Take Me To Church with the almost supernaturally groovy Too Sweet. Both tracks feature in a commanding set, along with chants of “Free Palestine”, a heartfelt plea to “protect Irish neutrality”, and a tender acoustic turn from a small stage in the middle of the audience.
So far, so predictable.
However, the real pleasure of the performance stems from the leap forward he has made with his 2023 third album, Unreal Unearth. Where his sound had previously been a sort of spiritual Celtic take on Mumford and Sons – or a “stadium Hothouse Flowers”, if you prefer – with these new tunes he has pivoted into thunderous soul-pop which blazes like a glitterball strapped to a bulldozer.
At Electric Picnic, that new direction achieves lift-off with the supremely catchy Eat Your Young. It ascends higher yet on the pile-driving Francesca, which suggests Radiohead shapeshifting into the Waterboys, and is the perfect conduit for his hurricane-force voice.
He doesn’t go full Bono, but there is a fair amount of politics. Early on, a video projection lists the millions spent each year by the global arms trade. You wonder if he might be about to follow the example of Hotline TNT and Deerhoof and remove his music from Spotify in protest at its chief executive’s investment in a military AI start-up. It’s the sort of direct action his fanbase would be 100 per cent behind, you suspect.
He later introduces Nina Cried Power – his valentine to music’s great voices, many of whom were blacklisted by bullying forces behind the scenes – by urging the audience to contact their TDs about the Central Bank buying Israel bonds.
He is passionate about the subject, but, standing at the back of the audience, his speech twists in the wind slightly. I don’t get the impression that many of the people around me are all that concerned about the Central Bank’s investment strategies – though it is of course possible that Hozier will stir them into action, which is the point of speaking out, after all.
In any event, as a major label songwriter, it is encouraging to hear him use his voice.
He then walks the walk with a brilliantly punchy Nina, followed by Take Me To Church. That tune is no longer a millstone around his neck, with Too Sweet having also surpassed one billion streams on Spotify. Freed of the responsibility of being Hozier’s biggest hit, it soars, as do the fireworks that light up Stradbally at the end of an epic performance.
