DR Nash

One night in the summer of 2003 I was watching David Letterman (actually it was Tom Green, he was guest host when Dave was off having one of his heart surgeries or something) and the musical guest came out. I wasn't really paying close attention at first but about halfway through the song was watching and listening intently. I remember that it was a scruffy guy singing and playing a guitar, a girl with a haunting voice singing with him, another girl playing the cello (I LOVE classical strings in pop-ish songs), as well as a bass player and drummer, who, as expected, did not really stand out until right at the end when the guy, girl and drummer were all singing at the same time. The song was enchanting and definitely piqued my curiosity.

And then, in a very un-Letterman like move, Tom Green had him play AGAIN. The second song was just him, his guitar, and his voice. Wow. I was hooked. [For those who are curious or if the links ever get deleted, the first song was 'Volcano' and the second 'Cannonball'] I spent the rest of the evening researching who he was and downloading everything of his I could get my hands on. Welcome to my addiction: Damien Rice. As luck would have it, he was coming to Atlanta a couple of months after that and I immediately bought tickets and his CD. By the time of the show, I talked my friend Erica into going with me (I had bought two tickets). All I can say is that I came out of there feeling like I had been through a religious experience; the entire show just wowed me. I was hooked before, now I was, well, whatever the next step is after that, obsessed maybe?

Since that time, I still buy every CD I can get my hands on plus keep a close eye on his tour schedule to see when he will be returning to Atlanta. He did not return for a while unfortunately. He did a lot of touring, he just never made it back to Atlanta until spring 2007. And of course, as soon as I knew that I told Erica and we went again and had an amazing time. He was just finishing up an American tour and was going back to Europe for most of the summer but a short time after the show some fall US tour dates were released. I mentioned it to Erica in passing one day and she said "is he coming to Atlanta and if not, how close?" Well, let's just say Nashville, here we come...

Before going any further, I just have to mention that we (unbeknownst) followed Vyvienne, the cellist, down the alleyway beside the theatre as she was going back to the bus from somewhere. It kinda clicked who she was when she actually typed the code to get onto the bus but still not completely. However, we did get the keycode from watching her. LOL

I am going to save time and not bore the non-fans (though you will be soon I am sure)with things like set lists and such but I will say we had really good seats such as I could literally put my drink on the stage, if they would have let me. It was another great show and actually better than the one in Atlanta we had seen a few months earlier. At that one there had been some recent band shakeups/trauma so it seemed like the overall mood was just pissy but at the Nashville show it was much more upbeat. Interested in more? Check here, here and here for starters and let me know what you think. I can't wait for him to come back and may have to plan more road trips for the next time, though my real goal is to see him in Europe where his shows sell out months in advance.