I was reliving my Damien Rice concert in my head today and I remembered I hadn't really shared how cool a concert it really was. I saw Damien Rice and The Swell Season in December in New York City, on a cold-wet night. It was absolutely perfect atmosphere for his style of music and The Beacon Theatre was an amazing venue.

To think that we willingly pay to see artists perform in athletic arenas is stupid after you've seen them in a real theatre. Acoustically, it was amazing; loud, but not too loud and wonderfully mixed.

I guess the most memorable part of the whole show was when the band left the stage and Damien Rice started playing "cannonball". As he started to play; he pulled the monitors from his ears and walked forward on the stage to the very edge, about 10 feet away from his microphone. As he gently strummed the song, it got absolutely dead-silent in the theatre. His guitar wasn't coming from the main speakers, but only from his on-stage monitor; so you could hear it, but just barely in a "it's in another room" kind of feel. As he's standing in this ornate, beautiful building with thousands of people sitting dead-silent, he begins to sing the song with no mic.

It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen and was especially moving. The passion and heart in his voice was very clear and it was almost like the entire rest of the crowd faded away and you were the only one witnessing it.

This video I found on YouTube is one of the closest I've found to recreating how it sounded and I thought I'd share.