One Swell Evening
As I've mentioned I went to The Swell Season concert last night in the Opera House Concert Hall, with a group of friends, mostly from my church. For the unintiated, The Swell Season is the two actors of the movie Once, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, merged with the Irish band The Frames, which Glen Hansard was in prior to the Swell Season. I don't get out to too many concerts but I just thought this one was superlative, the summit of excellence, the acme of musical entertainment etc etc.
It opened with Glen onstage on his own, unplugged, singing Say It To Me Now, just like the movie. Then all the band came out, plugged in and away went the night. Marketa left the piano to sing I Have Loved You Wrong, as I was so hoping she would, and we heard a few new songs from their upcoming album, which I haven't yet heard on other tour recordings. We were also treated to an electric violin solo from Colm Mac Con Iomaire and that was just mesmerising - lulled you off to someplace else, probably on the West coast of Ireland.
Glen was very entertaining, always amusing, sometimes insightful, sometimes talking rubbish, but he did it with an Irish accent. Then he put down the guitar to sing Happiness and out came some curious interpretive-dance-type manoeuvres.
One of the highlights was when he got us all to sing along with a new song called Back Broke, which was beautiful. He also played Van Morrison (think it's called Austral Weeks) and I have never seen anything like it - injected with such a huge amount of energy and emotion. Fitzcarraldo, near the end, with the violin soaring, was the climactic point, and to close they all came and stood on the edge of the stage for Bob Dylan's You Aint Going Nowhere. It was a fabulous night!
