On the second night of Bluesfest, audiences took refuge under tree-provided shade and mist machines at Lebreton Flats. Hozier and other acts’ performances were the only things hotter than the heat wave rolling through Ottawa.
Headliner Hozier — the soft-spoken Irish singer-songwriter behind TikTok trends and music in cozy coffee shops — penned a genre-blending discography that promises stirring messages across intricate guitar patterns and smothering, haunting vocals.
But the acts leading up to Hozier’s Friday night set were memorable in their own right, spreading sweet-sounding gentle tones and the occasional rock twang across the festival grounds.
Claude Munson played to a modest RBC Stage crowd gathering right up to the barrier. His acoustic guitar paved the way for a mellowed opening with his simple finger-plucking melodies and gentle, feathery voice in “The Silence That Came After” and “Love Comes Knocking.”
Vikki Gilmore began her River Stage performance by apologizing for leaving her acoustic guitar outside in the sun and having to re-tune.
“Now, no more issues for the rest of the show,” she joked, smiling, after forgetting something else backstage.
Flanked by a relaxed electric guitarist and quietly enthusiastic drummer — each donning a cowboy hat — the singer’s music blended country twang with folksy charm, for a comparably chill, laid-back set. Her country-classic “Jolene” cover began with an itching vocal tremble, before kicking in with fast-paced strums to contrast her low voice’s timbre.
Across the grounds and on the other end of the musical spectrum was the electric, bluesy-rock group The Claudettes.
Lead singer Rachel Williams gestured to the crowd with a frantic, blazing gaze as a brilliantly indulgent frontwoman, singing flawless vocal runs across octaves under flashing lights of reds and golds for the glam-rock, jazzy “No Matter How Much.”
But as the sun began to set and crushed beer cans became more abundant on the festival grounds, Hozier came out to screams and applause, kicking off “Nobody’s Soldier” with unwavering cries-turned-belts, as soldier figurines danced on screens behind him.
There was hardly a greeting before he sank into crowd-pleaser “Jackie and Wilson,” grinning between subtle rhythmic ad-libs.
Most noticeably at the beginning, the sound mixing felt off as the roaring, pounding bass (through no fault of the consistent player) drowned the beautiful orchestral elements and occasionally the vocals. It was a shame, considering violinists and cello players rarely grace mainstream music.
The thumping bass felt more appropriate at times, particularly for the rumbling oldie “Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene.” Hozier’s vocals dipped into earthy thumps to complement the chorus’s staccato pattern before jumping into “Dinner and Diatribes,” where he clung to the ends of his phrasing with haunting precision.
In “Eat Your Young,” Hozier closed his eyes for vocalizing in a tantalizing higher range, sounding just as enticing as his signature lower register. It was the first song from his most recent album, Unreal Unearth, that gained noticeable recognition from the crowd who mostly cheered their loudest for his debut album’s tracks.
Appropriately so — projections flashed statistics about lives lost at war, famine and climbing shareholder values — “Eat Your Young” was the epitome of everything Hozier offers: wildly impressive vocal range and metaphorical lyricism to criticize greed and power structures.
“Like Real People Do” stifled the angst, replacing the mood with affection as couples in the audience embraced and swayed along to Hozier’s tender guitar with his backup vocalists sweetly harmonizing together.
Similarly about devoted passion but with a little more fire, a blood-red forest overtook the background as Hozier performed the Dante’s Inferno-inspired “Francesca.” With grit to his cries and pounding beats to the song’s multiple climaxes, it was almost too jarring of a transition to the calming “Would That I” with Hozier’s agile finger-plucking humming the all-too familiar intro.
That guitar sound — where Hozier tends to the steady bass line while simultaneously never faltering in his complex melodies — stole the spotlight when the singer made his way to a smaller stage for heart-wrenching acoustic sets of “Cherry Wine” and “Unknown/Nth.”
Hozier invites the utmost intimacy in these mesmerizing moments, with his lyrical sonnets akin to poetry — though storytelling masterpieces “From Eden” and “Wasteland, Baby!” were noticeably absent from the setlist.
Back to the main stage, Hozier and his band glowed under a hazy, pink-and-purple-cloudy-sky backdrop for “Work Song,” his voice drowned out by the passionate crowd whose dancing matched the more upbeat, “De Shelby (Part 2)” and internet-famous “Too Sweet.”
“Someone New” and “Almost (Sweet Music)” carried a similar level of enthusiasm in Hozier’s performance as he hopped around to either end of the stage, before belting “Movement” with a provocative crispness to his baritone notes.
Feeding off of the crowd’s brimming smiles and cheers — one hilarious Freudian slip had Hozier asking the crowd to “make some love” to a band member before he blushed and corrected himself to “make some noise” — Hozier seems his cheekiest and happiest.
Perhaps that love from the crowd is what impassioned Hozier’s emotional speech, calling for a ceasefire in the Middle East and connecting Palestine’s fight for self-determination to Ireland’s battle for stability and statehood.
Fittingly, Hozier sank into “Nina Cried Power,” an unshaking homage to protest songs and the likes of Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, reminding the audience of a theme laced throughout his set: that the fight for peace is far from over, and music holds an irremovable role in the process.
Closer “Take Me To Church” immediately followed, Hozier’s voice digging into an untamed growl before holding the mic up to the audience who sang in perfect unison and jumped into the iconic chorus to sumptuous energy.
Hozier lovingly tied a Pride flag to his mic stand with a hint of a smile as the song’s music video depicting a queer couple rolled in the background. The flag danced in the light wind when Hozier grasped the hands of his band members to take their bows.
If the bagpipe player entertaining the crowd’s cheers by the O-Train station was any indication, Hozier’s Bluesfest performance was something that the night two crowd wouldn’t soon forget.
Featured image by Sadeen Mohsen/the Charlatan
