The most amazing thing about the performance was that it went for over 2 hours yet it felt like 10 mins. He performed all of his hits from O (excluding my favourite ‘Amie’ dammit!) and a few of his b-sides. He dipped into some covers including Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ and David Gray’s ‘Babylon’. Actually they were more like extensions of his own tracks as Rice seemed to go off on tangents more than twice.

The crowd were left stunned when he used the pedals to great effect, recording his guitar rhythms, leads, and voice, mixing them live to construct basically a full band. As much as the album is pretty laid back, he surprised the audience with some full-on rock songs that proved his versatility. A seasoned musician and former busker, Rice had no trouble changing from singing with everything he had to reaching octaves that most performers can only dream about. A lot of the time, you’ll go see a performer live only to hear them sound average compared to the album. Rice shows his live experience by exceeding the album performances with a number of tracks going on for over 7 minutes. And everybody in the room felt the energy and passion for music when he performed. A number of people around me were in another world when he sang and to be able to convey that to so many people, on your own, shows the ability of a great musician.

He made comment that Melbourne was the best city he had visited during his Australian tour, with the crowd completely agreeing, obviously going totally nuts. You hear that from every musician but it felt genuine here. The highlight of the night was his drunken rendition of ‘Cheers Darlin’ where he opened a bottle of red, lit a cigarette and sung like a drunk guy down on his luck, wishing he had made more of an impression on that girl at the bar (tell me you haven’t been there before?!).

He’s just released his b-sides EP and is slowly working on his follow-up to O. All good things come for those who wait.

Definitely up there as the gig of 2004. Cheers!

Links:

- The best fansite I’ve found.
- Another great fansite.

P.S – Anybody wanting 30-second video clips of the performance, e-mail me.

Reviewed Before Sunset a few days back and I’m still sticking by my comments that it’s the best film of 2004 so far. But it’s not for everyone. Two big sequels have just opened up in the US, Alien Vs Predator and Exorcist: The Beginning with terrible reviews, both of which I predicted would turn out to be excruciatingly painful to watch. So it’s awesome that Richard Linklater can show the world how to make an excellent sequel.

I’m keen to see The Girl Next Door opening tomorrow since I’m a sucker for both potentially crappy crude male-oriented teen films and Eliza Cuthbert. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t seeing if for the eye candy factor but it also looks like a lotta fun based on the trailer. Could be the perfect Friday night movie before heading out later on?

Scored tickets to see Irish musician Damien Rice (pictured above with Lisa Hannigan) and band perform at the Prince on October 21st. O is a great album and some of his b-sides are very good. He’ll be bringing Lisa Hannigan and the band with him in his first Australian gig so I imagine this show will sell-out. Anybody out there seen Damien and the band live? I’d like to hear any thoughts you have to share.

And while we’re on the subject of music, this little sucker might be in my possession soon (made by Roland actually) with this providing all the sounds and editing solutions to make my tunes come to life. It’s a good start anyway. I’ve been wanting to get into film and project scoring for a while now so I think this combination is a good start. Plus having a miniDisc enables me to record my own sounds and manipulate the hell outta them. I also think that if you can compose your own soundtracks and get a better understanding of how the scoring process works, you can at least create temp tracks so the ‘real’ musicians can get an idea of what you’d really like in the end. I have no illusions of being a ‘real’ musician but just being a good amateur is better than being nothing at all. Plus it’s so cool having a virtual orchestra at your fingertips. Trust me on that :)