Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice has announced he will return to Australia in May to play six shows, including his debut at the Sydney Opera House.
Rice’s Opera House show will begin the tour on May 12, before concerts at Melbourne’s Hamer Hall, Geelong’s Costa Hall, the Oden Theatre in Hobart, Brisbane’s QPAC and the HOTA Theatre on the Gold Coast.
See dates below – tickets are on sale this Friday (February 17) from 2pm local time. There’s also a Frontier Touring pre-sale that kicks off a day earlier, which you can register for here.
Rice’s most recent studio album, ‘My Favourite Faded Fantasy’, arrived back in 2014. Since then, the songwriter’s output has been relatively light. In 2020, he covered Sia‘s ‘Chandelier’ for Julia Stone‘s ‘Songs For Australia’ bushfire relief fundraiser.
Last year, Rice shared new single ‘Astronaut’ as part of ‘The Busk Record’, a compilation that benefited homelessness charity Dublin Simon Community and also featured the likes of Bono and Glen Hansard.
In November, Rice announced a 2023 European and UK tour, which will kick off next month and mark his first gigs since 2019. At the time of the tour’s announcement, Rice promised that “new songs” were on the way.
“Sometimes you have to step away from what you love in order to learn how to love it again,” Rice said in 2013, when speaking about the time taken between his 2006 album ‘9’ and its follow-up, ‘My Favourite Faded Fantasy’.
Damien Rice’s 2023 Australian tour dates are:
MAY
Friday 12 – Sydney, Opera House
Tuesday 16 – Melbourne, Hamer Hall
Thursday 18 – Geelong, Costa Hall
Saturday 20 – Hobart, Odeon Theatre
Monday 22 – Brisbane, QPAC
Wednesday 24 – Gold Coast, HOTA Theatre