Concert review: On stage in Charlotte, Hozier humbly embraces his place in music history

It was hard to determine whether the typically humble Irish-born music star known as Hozier had just a liiiiittle bit of actual swagger in his step when he arrived in Charlotte on Tuesday night.

But if he did — if any chest-puffing at all was detectable — who could blame him?

It’s not merely that he’s sold out the majority of the 59 shows that make up his “Unreal Unearth” tour’s second North American leg, which launched last weekend in Raleigh. (We’re no longer talking about sellouts at 2,000-seat auditoriums, either; these are 20,000-seat amphitheaters capable of generating downright apocalyptic traffic jams ... as some reportedly experienced on the way into the one here.)

It’s that, well, Hozier made some pretty significant history shortly before striding onto the stage for the first concert of PNC Music Pavilion’s 2024 season.

And as it turned out, his opening act was too excited about the news to not share with everyone before he could.

“It’s such a joy,” Canadian Americana-folk singer Allison Russell said barely a quarter of the way into her 40-minute set, “to be here warming up the stage for our beautiful brother —” then she blurted it: “Number one on the U.S. Hot 100 chart. The first time an Irish artist has done this since the year he was born, when Sinéad O’Connor did it with ‘Nothing Compares 2 U.’”

She got it exactly right.

Earlier in the day, Hozier’s label Columbia Records issued a press release announcing the news about his freshly minted Billboard status, noting the coincidental timing (very same week in 1990, for real!) and the fact that “Too Sweet” also had become the first No. 1 single by an Irish male soloist since Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone Again (Naturally)” over a half-century ago.

(Yes, believe it or not, ubiquitous Hozier earworm “Take Me to Church” fell just short in 2013, peaking at No. 2.)

During the early portion of his own headlining set, however, it almost seemed like maybe the 34-year-old star was feeling too bashful to even make mention of the accolade himself.

The fourth of 20 songs he performed, “Too Sweet” went introduction-less, settling for a tidal wave of screams that welcomed the throbbing bass line, the laid-back drumbeat and Hozier’s sultry delivery of the opening lines — It can’t be said I’m an early bird / It’s ten o’clock before I say a word... — sung with both of his hands shoved deep into his pants pockets.

Then at the start of Verse 2, he grabbed a red-and-white electric guitar to this time match the bass line with some snarling chords.

He was, as he always seems to be, an unassuming, accessible embodiment of cool, his shiny brown hair spilling down over the shoulders of the jean jacket he’d thrown on over his untucked white button-down shirt.

It wasn’t until after the crowd cheered the song’s conclusion that Hozier finally, almost sheepishly, tooted his own horn. Ever so gently.

“I just found out yesterday that that song is number one on the charts, and I just want to say thank you so, so much to everybody who’s been listening.” Nearly an hour and a half later, during a break in his encore, he made another passing reference: “Thank you again to anybody who was listening to ‘Too Sweet’ during the week, or last week.”

Of course, that’s hardly the only song he sang in Charlotte that impressed.

He closed the main part of his set with “Take Me to Church,” his impassioned 2013 anthem supporting gay marriage in Ireland. As always, it proved particularly rousing to both fans — who for the first time all night basically sang every single word — and to Hozier himself, who for the first time all night ranged to the sides of the stage, after spending an hour and a half basically in the middle of it.

Then the singer strayed even further afield, pulling off a nice surprise to start the encore by roaming out to a mini-stage next to the sound board for his stripped-down acoustic version of “Cherry Wine.” As always, it proved to be a haunting, emotive depiction of domestic abuse that on the surface sounds like a traditional love song; but only if you don’t listen to the words. (This might explain the various couples I saw cuddling with each other and smiling as he crooned the devastating lyrics — Open hand or closed fist would be fine / Blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine...).

Hozier returned to the stage for the penultimate song — though it was one that took him a while to get to because that song was “Nina Cried Power,” his salute to the makers of protest music during the American Civil Right Movement.

Over the course of five minutes, in teeing it up, he meditated on everything from the ensuing civil rights protest in Northern Ireland (which, as he noted, was inspired by the one in the U.S.) to women’s and LGBTQ+ rights to the end of Apartheid in South Africa, before stopping just short of mentioning either Israel or Palestine by name.

“We’re so blessed to live in democracies where we’re represented,” Hozier said. “And our hearts should be represented. And our minds and our conscience should be represented, by those in power. By those in political power. Both at home and abroad. The same way we can decide, you know, we wouldn’t want — in our name — violence to continue. The horrendous violence that we’re seeing on our TV screens in the Middle East at the moment.

“We need security and guaranteed statehood for everybody in that region.”

But his music and his politics aside, the show-stealer on Tuesday night was the same individual who stole a little bit of Hozier’s thunder by gushing about his historic hit before the sun had gone down: Allison Russell.

Somewhat like “Cherry Wine,” Russell’s essence is steeped in pain. She has said publicly, and frequently (including on stage in Charlotte), that she was raised by a white supremacist who abused her physically, psychologically and sexually for years. At the same time, her whole aura just makes you want to smile.

When she bounded back on stage at Hozier’s invitation mid-set, to duet with him on their very-recent “Wildflower and Barley” collab, she was bursting with charming enthusiasm, grinning a gee-whiz-look-where-I-am grin as if she was a lucky fan plucked from the crowd to meet him.

When she returned to assist him with the night’s closer, “Work Song,” she looked similarly wowed, like someone had just picked as the next contestant on “The Price Is Right”; then she dropped to her knees to (only-half-jokingly, I assume) bow in deference to him.

On both songs, her voice sounded like honey, his like butter.

And after the final one, Hozier — in typical humble fashion — tried to make it about her. “Give it up for Allison Russell!,” he shouted, just barely getting his amplified voice over the top of thousands of screams. But she didn’t miss a single beat in throwing praise right back at him. Bigger, better praise. A reprise of her earlier statement, and mic-drop-worthy. “The third Irish artist in history to have a number one,” she bellowed, “the same week that Sinéad did, the year he was born. Legend!”

Then she said it once more, to drive the point home:

“Legend.”

Hozier’s setlist

1. “De Selby (Part 1)“

2. “De Selby (Part 2)“

3. “Jackie and Wilson”

4. “Too Sweet”

5. “To Be Alone”

6. “Dinner & Diatribes”

7. “Francesca”

8. “It Will Come Back”

9. “Unknown/Nth”

10. “Like Real People Do”

11. “Wildflower and Barley”

12. “Abstract (Psychopomp)“

13. “Would That I”

14. “Almost (Sweet Music)“

15. “Eat Your Young”

16. “Movement”

17. “Take Me to Church”

Encore:

18. “Cherry Wine”

19. “Nina Cried Power”

20. “Work Song”