Hozier – First Avenue – Minneapolis MN – May 17th 2023

5/17/2023 Hozier @ First Avenue Nightclub Minneapolis

There seems to be two types of people: people who think Hozier is the most amazing singer on the face of the earth and people who have no idea who it is. For the very few people in the latter group, Hozier is a singer from Ireland who also writes his own songs. This fall he is going on an arena tour across the U.S. but currently he is touring the US in very small venues. One of those venues is the legendary First Avenue nightclub in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This small venue that holds 1500 sold out very, very quickly and when I got there that night to cover the show, the line was all the way down the block on both First Avenue and 7th street. Inside the venue there was an\ kinetic energy I hadn’t felt before in First Avenue and it was crackling with anticipation. Hozier was very generous to Minneapolis. Not only did he do this rare small concert at First Avenue, but he also hosted a meet & greet at the legendary record store Electric Fetus the next day for 500 very lucky people (I was also one of those lucky people thanks to my friend Dan.) It was a quick visit, but it would have to be with 500 people there. However, he made each interaction with each person meaningful and everyone got a photo with Hozier and everyone in line got a beautiful pre-handsigned 11” x 14” poster. It was a great experience at the Electric Fetus and hopefully they do more of these meet & greets with some legendary people (one suggestion….Billy Idol….)

Even though I don’t know his music that well, the concert was amazing and very moving. Even though I have never been to Europe….yet, it felt like something that might have happened in old Irish pub on a street on the end of nowhere where everyone is having a pint and having a rollicking old time. He played a lot of his hits such as the mega hit “Take Me to Church” and “Work Song”, but also played a brand new song called “Francesca” that had not been released yet. All the songs were amazing, but the one that amazed me personally that I didn’t know that well was a song called “Would That I.” I think I heard part of it once before, but when I heard the entire song live it was powerful and very moving and it felt like out of body experience in a way. It is definitely a song that could be put on auto-repeat forever!

Review and photos by Todd Johnson