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The seventh annual Sea Hear Now in Asbury Park may as well have started on a Sunday.

Irish singer-songwriter Hozier transformed the Surf stage into a pulpit, powerfully vocalizing his catalogue of songs, which chronicle injustice and love for 80 minutes. Thousands of fans intently watched, swayed, and acknowledged every one of the Grammy-award-nominated singer’s call to action.

Their feet weren’t gracing an antique church floor, but rather nestled deeply into the soft sand with a slight chill from the ocean. For Hozier, born Andrew John Hozier-Byrne, and his fans alike, they were acknowledging the disorienting state of the world, while also believing that music is a flicker of light showing us the way through it.

Sea.Hear.Now 2025 – Day One

Named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in 2025, Hozier proved to be a showman, placing message and musical craft as the forefront of his live performance. Backed by a full band, including three background singers who served to elevate his soulful vocals, the singer/songwriter started with the timely and Motown-influenced opener, “Nobody’s Soldier “ (2024). The song chronicles the depths of sadness we all experience when in close proximity to war and destruction, in a digital world. As the song played, the LED screen displayed six images of television screens in various states of military conflict and disheartening imagery.

With “Eat Your Young” (2024), a song which speaks to the sacrificial nature of short-term gain and greed at the expense of the future, various tickers showing Lockheed Martin’s growing stock price and global military spending were shown on the screen. Early on during his set, Hozier took a skillful and focused approach, playing his electric guitar with precision and allowing his vocals to project throughout the beach like electricity through a live power line.

In the middle of the set, the singer took time to acknowledge the enormity and devotion of the crowd, who had just sang the last words of “Would I That” (2019) as if they were a part of an earlier soundcheck.

Sea.Hear.Now 2025 – Day One

“There’s definitely something in the water here,” the singer acknowledged as he moved to a smaller stage in the middle of the 35,000 fans who screamed as soon as they recognized what was happening.

It’s one thing to be a headliner, but it’s another thing to exert total command of thousands of people with one mic and an acoustic guitar. Standing slightly bathed in white light, Hozier sang “Cherry Wine” (2016), a song that chronicles the toll of a physical and emotional abusive relationship. With the intensity of the subject matter and the care and vocal elasticity with which Hozier sang, there was an intense hush over the crowd.

While many waited and erupted at Hozier’s time-tested closure and biggest hit, “Take Me To Church” (2013), it was really his call to action during “Nina Cried Power” (2018) that will be the lasting image of an unforgettable set. “It’s important to remember just how much work had to be put in and how much it had to be fought for, and how easily they can be taken away,” Hozier proclaimed, speaking to the various attacks on the right to free speech, voting rights, and marriage equality, among others.

While some have shied away from speaking out about issues in fear of backlash, Hozier has embraced it – even citing the contributions of legends Mavis Staples, Nina Simone, and Joan Baez as stars in the sky for his own excavation into how the civil rights movement in the 1960s influenced Northern Ireland in 1967.

Given Blink-182’s soon-to-come headlining set on Sunday, it’s a bit of a tonal whiplash. Nevertheless, it shows off Sea Hear Now’s versatility in a festival landscape that surely needs a shock to the system. By the time Hozier’s set wrapped, it gave fans a hearty song to sing, echoed throughout generations of people striving for equality, one of hope and steadfastness.