Screaming girls have anointed pop music heroes since Elvis first swung his hips in Memphis, and there was no mistaking the sound coming from the crowd at Wembley last night – from the second Hozier took the stage, there was a kind of delirium in the room.
Certainly, standing six foot five with long curly hair and an Irish accent, Hozier is textbook teenage crush material – luckily, he’s got the music to match. Opening with eerie “De Selby (Part 1)” and triumphant “(Part 2)”, from his latest album Unreal Unearth, the singer had us in the palm of his hand and didn’t let go until he left the stage.
After the snappy bass of “De Selby”, the mood stayed high with “Jackie and Wilson” from his self-titled debut album. Travelling confidently between new and early material, Hozier and his band’s playful approach meant that song transitions felt seamless – just as well, because there was plenty of ground to cover, and no time to waste.
While it was hard to distinguish ‘hits’ per se – every opening chord seemed to elicit delighted screams of recognition from the crowd – love song “Francesca” gave the gig’s first section a crescendo. “Are you still feeling good, Wembley?” Hozier asked. “Don’t worry, I’ll change that!” he laughed, announcing a mood shift on the horizon. Sure enough, his stripped-back rendition of “Cherry Wine” ushered in a moment of comparative quiet in a gig that otherwise operated on a grand scale (soaring choruses, full band, big feelings).
Now on the home straight, it was time to pick up the pace again – and while he resisted the urge to cram all the hits into the gig’s final stretch, Hozier did arguably save the best for last. “Would That I”, performed with Abigail Morris from support band The Last Dinner Party, was rousing and joyful, while “Eat Your Young” – a personal favourite – proved to be more fun than a song about eating children has any right to be.
The plummeting piano of “Take me to Church” – Hozier’s massive debut single – was just as irresistible live as on the radio, and he used the momentum to propel a short but heartfelt speech about women’s rights and the war in Gaza. Quoting Irish revolutionary James Connolly – “no revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression” – Hozier made a compelling case for the part that art can play in political change.
Right on cue came “Nina Cried Power”, invoking activist musicians of the past and adding Hozier’s own name to the list (“Billy cried power, Joni cried power, Nina cried power, and I could cry power”) before the ecstatic finale of “Work Song” – “No grave can hold my body down / I’ll crawl home to her.”
Part concert, part manifesto, Hozier’s Wembley show was packed with purpose as well as performance. While plenty of stars give lip service to one cause or another, it was genuinely heartening to see a public platform being used for good in a way that felt sincere rather than calculated. Music and message in perfect harmony: in Hozier, the screaming girls have backed another winner.