Review: Hozier - Manchester Apollo

The opening act on the current Hozier tour is fellow Irish 3 piece, Wyvern Lingo. They come from Wicklow, the same place as Hozier. The 3 girls all take it in turns to sing and it would be easy to say that they have the melody of The Corrs backed with a youthful zest, it was a refreshing start to the gig. Their most memorable track was Running and the exposure they will receive on this tour will do them no harm.

Hozier has had a huge worldwide hit last year with the single, Take Me To Church, the last time he played a gig of his own in Manchester was at the smaller Ritz venue, tonight's audience is twice the size of that and the gig is sold out. This European tour runs from Sweden to Turkey and most places in between.

"Good to see you Manchester, how you doing?" He asks the fans as he steps out on stage, it is typical of his friendly easy going nature. With only one album to his name it was always going to be that most of the album was going to be played: it's a mixed album of slow and mid tempo tracks, the latter of which are more rockier when played live.

He saves the more uptempo tracks for the first half of the gig. Backed by a talented band including a cello player which added a melancholy touch to the songs, they were adept and faultless. Jackie and Wilson sounds better live than the recorded version whilst To Be Alone was rocked up where you could even hear a touch of Led Zeppelin in the track.

On It Will Come Back he is joined on stage by the keyboard player from Wyvern Lingo, the song is performed as a duo with their two voices complementing each other.

Of course you would expect him to save his big hit until the end and he does just that with Take Me To Church which is sung loudly by the audience, he looks taken back by the reception, "I said before that I don't judge, but tonight you were brilliant" he offers.

He encores with an acoustic version of Cherry Wine and Work Song concluding a gig that showed that he looks like being around for years to come. Definitely a lot more rockier than I expected and a great gig to start the year.