Davin O'Dwyer reviews Damien Rice at Dublin's Vicar Street.

Damien Rice

Vicar Street, Dublin

Davin O'Dwyer

"I remember it well," sings Lisa Hannigan at the beginning of this beguiling concert, and well she might - it has been three years since Rice's breakthrough album O.

If Rice or his band is bored with the material, however, they do a good job of hiding it - the years since the album have allowed the songs to mature in live performance. The seven performers are lined up like a school disco, with the boys (drummer Tom Osander, bassist Shane Fitzsimons and American guitarist Joel Shearer) on one side of the stage and the girls (cellist Vyvienne Long, violinist Cora Venus Lunny and Hannigan) on the other, with Rice in the middle.

Rice may have become a big star on the back of O, but he has made a habit of avoiding the spotlight. He brings that to its literal extreme in this performance, which is almost entirely backlit, green and orange and white glowing behind the band, with subtle blue downlighting accentuating the silhouettes. Movement on stage is so limited they appear to be marionettes, all rolling heads, swaying hair, square shoulders and spindly arms. The stagecraft is focused purely on the music - Rice doesn't even talk to the crowd until very late in the concert, despite someone in the crowd cheekily asking him to say hello.

New songs sit comfortably with the old favourites, but whatever one thinks of Rice and his lovelorn songs, it is worth going to a Rice gig just to hear Lisa Hannigan's irresistible voice. She could probably make an evening of Bucks Fizz covers into a moving musical experience. It is her duets with Rice that really soar, particularly Volcano and Older Chests. Blower's Daughter, meanwhile, might have a future of saccharine cover versions ahead of it, but tonight it is powerfully simple and elegant.

The spotlight finally gets some use, but typically it falls not on Rice but on Lunny for a violin solo. The crowd are reverential bordering on sedate, and they only become more spellbound as the lights go down completely for Eskimo and Cold Water, providing a suitably climactic finale for this mesmerising performance.