Some might say Irish singer/songwriter Damien Rice [ tickets ] is neither cool nor exciting. His entire debut album, "O," is filled with slow ballads. And when the scruffy singer stepped out onto a nearly barren Wiltern stage Friday night (3/26) with just his old, beat up, acoustic guitar, things did not look good.

But while Rice's opener, "The Blower's Daughter, Part II," began quietly, it slowly picked up steam. By the song's climax, Rice had summoned a tornado of distortion through his six-string; he was wide mouthed and leaning back as he yelled toward the old theater's ceiling. And then he suddenly switched back to the song's quiet opening as he whispered the final words to a silent, rapt audience.

By the next song, when singer Laura Hannigan and cellist Vyvienne Long took their places to the right of the troubadour, Rice was apologizing for his guitar's poor sound. "It's been a little under the weather," he said in his charming accent, "so I had to take it to a guitar doctor." Just then his twitching fingers popped a string off the instrument. But eloquence, personality--and a good stage crew--can go a long way at times like these.

"I didn't have time to fix it because we were stuck in traffic," Rice told the understanding Los Angeles crowd. "But you know some people hate traffic. But I think traffic can be like poetry, you know?"

As he spoke his bassist and drummer took their spots at his left side, ready for a haunting reading of "I Remember." Rice, singing through a distorted microphone, gave the song a poetic feel, its powerful crescendo highlighted by Hannigan's banshee cry. Rice, meanwhile, made his small acoustic guitar sound like a raging Les Paul.

And that's the way it went all night long. Rice would turn soft, super-sensitive, singer/songwriter schlock into epic, powerhouse rock anthems. His quivering falsetto could give you goosebumps--but then again, so could his frantic scream and fuzzed-up meltdown guitar. Boring? No way. This was compelling music not to be ignored.

Rice and his group served up fun surprises all night. Hannigan covered Nina Simone's "Be My Husband." Behind her, Rice was on the floor pounding his guitar, while the other band members each smacked their instruments, creating a collage of cracks, thwacks, clicks and booms behind Hannigan's sensual vocals. Before that, feather-voiced cellist Long busted out a cover of the White Stripe's "Seven Nation Army," plucking the song's main riff on her cello while Hannigan played the part of Meg and the smiling crowd clapped along feverishly.

For the touching "Cannonball," Rice and Hannigan crisscrossed their lyrics like strands of DNA, while the fans swayed from side to side. Then Rice took on "The Blower's Daughter." His drummer, playing with brushes now, gently added to the song's poignant vibe, as Hannigan sat behind them plucking a sunburst Telecaster.

For nearly two hours, Rice and his tempest-in-a-teacup backing band shattered, finessed, and wowed. The singer's robust performance gave his songs a power and passion some listeners might miss on his much-lauded debut.

Friday night's show ended with a set of great songs. First came Rice's biggest hit, "Volcano," with all its honey-sweet guitar chords. Then a fan requested, "Cheers, Darling," to which Rice responded, "I don't have a beer." Just then his bassist handed him a beer. "I don't have a cigarette," Rice muttered. And of course, his bassist obliged. Then, to a prerecorded backing track, Rice stammered around the stage chugging from the bottle as smoke rose up around him. "Cheers, Darling," he said with a potent mix of bile and bitterness, "Here's to you and your lover boy."

Next, Rice welcomed Glen Hansard, from opening band The Frames, to the mic for that band's heart-ripping ballad, "Red Chord." Somehow, the song morphed into Radiohead's "Creep" and then revisited Rice's own "The Blower's Daughter."

When he was informed he had gone over time, Rice did not want to end his show, allowing one final song, "Eskimo Friend." As he sang, smoke rose up around him like vapors of the night's aural fireworks. A blue spotlight beamed from the side of the stage at the musician and, improbably, Damien Rice and his old acoustic guitar were cool.