Damien Rice in London

And so it is with a Damien Rice gig. Seeing a musician on stage, cigarette and wine in one hand, microphone in the other, and downing three glasses of red wine in 2 minutes while recounting a story of heartbreak, appearing literally on the verge of nervous breakdown, surely is a feast for the eyes of the teeming masses present - and makes for pretty good newspaper fodder.

But possibly it hides a more tormented character, playing up to the audience only to cover a soul ravaged by disappointment and regret.

That's what I would have said a couple of years ago, when myself and the Briscrew went along to the Tivoli expecting an evening of sweetly melancholic songs played out acoustically without effect or wah - and were resoundly blown away by what could only be described as a musical orgasm.

Now though, it all seems a little rehearsed. That and the venue was too big - the intimacy of his music and it's delicacy was lost amongst the 4,000+ crowd. Later this year he is playing the Wembley Arena which holds more than 10,000 people - I'm not even going to bother going there.

The thing is, the attraction with Damien Rice has always been that no matter how bad you are feeling - you can put on '0' and know that there is someone else out there feeling a million times worse. His music was an emotional medicine that cheered you up through it's sheer sadness.

'9' sees a change of tact - mostly gone are the verses of personal insecurity and anger, replaced by a new light, new love that he seems to have found. It sees him find some sort of inner peace - even if the negativity is still there in small doses.

However, at the same time he has tried to keep his live shows downbeat and melancholic - but it doesn't seem convincing anymore. It's like he has practises his lines too many times, read the book too many times, and is now bored of it. It's almost he has stumbled onto a winning formula in the last couple of years and is reluctant to let it go - even if the feelings that gave birth to this formula have since left his body.

There are new injections to the live act - a jittery, out of place, drum solo for one. Lisa was conspicuous by her absence, and when one punter asked 'where's Lisa!!', Damien replied with a nonchalant 'I dunno' - or, as one newspaper said, ''like he had just disposed of her body''.

Some of the old magic is still there - a crescendo of noise post- Older Chests (which took me back to Amsterdam, tripping balls on mushies with the walls closing in), eventually morphing into Eskimo was spellbinding; and the off-the-mic acoustic version of Cannonball as the final song was something special.

Throughout the whole set, however, permeated a sense of 'I've done this before so many times'. Maybe it's a desire to keep the audience out of his inner mind, maybe he has found a peace that is balancing so precariously he dare not rock the boat too hard in fear of toppling back into 'O'-style torment.

Either way, from a punter's point of view it led to a definite disappointment.

Put it this way - every time I had seen Damien Rice before Tuesday night, the gig had stayed with me for the next couple of weeks, occupying my spare moments.

On Wednesday morning I forgot I had even been.