A lot of things happened at the Grammys last night: Kanye disrupted another stage in protest at Beck winning album of the year instead of Beyoncé, Aphex Twin won best electronic album (and was never going to be in a room with all those people ), St. Vincent won Best Alternative album. Sam Smith won a lot of awards, a buttload of major recording artists performed live and some other stuff too.
In among the performances of Sia, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, AC/DC, Rihanna, Paul McCartney & Kanye West was the Irish man Andrew Hozier Byrne. It’s still quite a thing to watch the music and performance of the Wicklow man grow as it has been over the last year and a half: from a debut EP to that video to the festival slots to the album to Spotify’s most viral song of 2014. It’s impressive and looks unstoppable at this point.
Last time Hozier got up on a world stage for Victoria Secret, he didn’t look comfortable when juxtaposed singing a song that uses ecclesiastical metaphors for sex in a lingerie model commercial context. So, when he got up last night at the Grammys to perform ‘Take Me To Church’ once again, it was more fitting, a musical context, in which the singer gave a powerful performance joined by a souped-up backing band (the song has been sounding better live of late) and Annie Lennox who sang Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ ‘I Put A Spell On You’, a song that was a natural fit for Hozier to show off his guitar blues credentials.
Youtube version | Billboard version
Photo: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images
