At the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts on Tuesday, April 24

After watching Damien Rice unload every painful memory from his arsenal of overemotive breakup ballads, I can only conclude that he owes Mike Nichols his life–or at least partial proceeds of all his earnings. If it weren't for the Closer director having such a hard-on for "The Blower's Daughter", Rice would have toiled in obscurity on the Dublin pub circuit and that would have been that. That's not to say he doesn't have a knack for carrying a note or turning a sad phrase. But check out any open-mike night in the U.K. or Ireland and you'll see half a dozen Damien Rices: young art students with beautiful voices and pretty lyrics, but zero star quality to set them apart. However, fate (in the form of a legendary filmmaker) stepped in for this glorified busker, and now he packs venues like the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts.

And what a night of melancholy heartache it was. Couples clung to each other as they watched Rice perform quiet piano numbers about unrequited love, strum acoustic ditties about letting go of someone who is too clingy, and occasionally rock out with his band (in an angsty "love hurts" kind of way, of course).

About halfway through the show, he let his cellist, Vyvienne Long, take centre stage with a song of her own, which turned out to be some folked-out rap jam that wasn't nearly as quirky as she thought it was. (My take: she must be blowing someone high up in Rice's entourage. Any guesses?)

For the encore, Rice started with his Closer-propelled, career-launching hit. Then he left us with "Cheers Darlin'", a song about some poor pickled sod raising a glass to his ex and her new lover. Here, the otherwise super-serious singer-songwriter decided to ham it up by putting on a fake drunken slur and stagger. It came off as a cheap one-man musical. But maybe that was just his selfless way of offering a little comic relief after depressing the fuck out of us for 90 minutes. He just gives and gives, that man does.