In partnership with Artists Den, Billboard is delving into memorable concerts put on by the live show series, as they explore the history of the venues the shows are held at and learn more about the artists themselves. In the latest installment, take a look back at Hozier’s 2016 show at Los Angeles’ The Theater at Ace Hotel, where the Irish singer and songwriter performed hits including “Take Me To Church,” “From Eden,” “Sedated,” and “Cherry Wine” – you can check out the latter above.
Speaking of “Cherry Wine,” Hozier recalled that he wrote the song to try to capture the “other side of love” and the “more terrible nature of love.”
“To some people, love comes in a lot of different kinds of shapes and sizes,” he explained. “Carole King had this song called ‘He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss),’ and it carries a similar sentiment to that.”
In another clip, below, Hozier discussed how playing to thousands of music fans at festivals compares to playing for smaller crowds comprised just of fans. “You can do a] ten-thousand show for yourself, or then you can play to a crowd of sixty thousand people at a festival,” he said. “Ten thousand people who've bought tickets just for your own show, that's very different.”
“It can be overwhelming, and it can be a little bit intimidating, and certainly most of those people, you can't see them,” he said of large audiences. “They're noises in the darkness. At some point, you just have to trust that they're there to see…the music that you make and so you just do your best with that.”
Another segment takes a deeper look at the Theater at Ace Hotel itself, as the venue’s Theatre Director Kelly Weiss traces its history back to when it was first built in 1927 by United Artists Pictures, which was formed by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin, and was used as a silent movie theater.
“Aesthetically, the place is gorgeous,” Hozier said of the space. “Theaters kind of tend to take with them a lot of what's gone on in them in the last hundred years and you can kind of feel a little bit of that.”
“There's an energy and there’s a closeness and there's an intimacy to a small room,” he added of the 1,600-seat venue. “You can see the face of the last man, and that's great.”
You can check out some more footage from the concert below.
