You thought Ariana Grande was so hot right now?
Hozier just pulled his own “thank u next” by dethroning the pop princess on the Billboard 200, where his new album, Wasteland, Baby! made its chart debut last week. It’s the first rock album to sit up there since Mumford & Sons' late 2018 LP, and the 28-year-old (real name Andrew Hozier-Byrne) will bring it to Mahaffey Theater for a set that finds him accompanied by 21-year-old UK songwriter Jade Bird, who is a rising star on her own.
Her raw vocal has been described as a “turbine engine” by MTV, but there’s a little more nuance than that buried in the music of a youngster equally influenced by Shakira, Shania Twain and Chemical Brothers. Her debut EP is due a month after this show, and the Mahaffey Theater crowd should fully expect to hear a lot of the alt-country, folk and rock that’s going to make Bird famous very soon.
Hozier w/Jade Bird. Wed. March 20. Mahaffey Theater St. Petersburg. themahaffey.com.
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This article appears in Mar 14-21, 2019.