The many superlatives dished out to Damien Rice stem primarily from his ability to wow live crowds. And so it goes here, despite this gig's lofty purpose as fundraiser for the campaign to free Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, whose 60th birthday it was last weekend. There is no disputing the Irish songwriter's sincerity - his new single, Unplayed Piano, was written to raise awareness of her plight - but the gravity of the occasion doesn't stop people from wailing and high-fiving throughout.

The man hurtfully compared with David Gray has two things going for him: along with enough Kildare blarney to see him through a solo show that features an awful lot of weepies from his best-selling debut album, O, he's got a boffinly interest in loops and gadgets. Just when you can't bear one more instant of heartless girls with long, black hair, he'll press a foot pedal and change the atmosphere with high-voltage feedback so you are jolted out of your torpor. These semi-experimental stretches, which take place in near-darkness after he asks for the lights to be dimmed, make humdrum songs better, and turn good songs such as the anguished I Remember into electronic tours de force.

He has a little trick involving singing into two microphones at once to create a loop of his own voice, the effect is akin to a stripped-back Sonic Youth. Most surprising, though, is the effect he has on fans, but never underestimate the power of an unshaven Celt who falls to his knees in fits of passion and sings whole tunes that way, unamplified. The countryish Volcano is thus prettily dispatched, and you begin to understand what former girlfriend Renee Zellweger saw in him. One woman even cries sporadically, her sniffles audible when Rice pauses for breath. When not sobbing at the likes of The Blower's Daughter, she is calling out comments. Her reaction to a song about making "accidental babies" isn't fit for a family paper, which makes Rice's subtle but inexorable rise all the more remarkable.