What? This is my first post in over two months? nah. That’s not true. You’re telling lies. liess lieesss.
Sooo I saw the Swell Season in concert the other day at Radio City Music Hall. They were amazing. For the unenlightened, the Swell Season is a band-group-thingy made up of Glen Hansard (of the Frames) and Marketa Irglova, and whoever else they happen to be playing with at any given time. For the semi-enlightened they were the guy and girl in the amazing film Once. So, since Once they’ve been touring together as the Swell Season, and put out a new album called “Strict Joy” in addition to Once’s soundtrack and the album “The Swell Season” which they made before it.
So, what kind of music is this that it is so imperative to hear it live? Well, Glen Hansard has this really gruff voice but then he just goes all out with it and sings all about heartbreak and sadness with all his might. Then, Marketa Irglova has a beautiful voice and counteracts all that gruffness. They are an incredible musical duo, and it’s because of that that Once was so good. Oh, they also dated for a little while after Once came out, but that’s over now. But they’re still musical partners!
SO ANYWAY. The concert. Well, no. Back up. Before the concert, they were playing outside on the street, like street performers. They were just standing outside of Radio City Music Hall, an hour before the concert they would perform right inside, just singing on the street with a large crowd of people around them. They then walked towards the back entrance, still singing and being followed by everybody and literally went into the doors still playing music. Look at the picture I got on my cell phone!!! You can sortaофис столове tell that it’s them.
So. Oh, yeah, the actual concert. Even in the fairly large Radio City Music Hall the intimate music really got across. They sang a lot of their songs (since they really don’t have that many, only 2-3 album’s worth) plus some stuff from the Frames and unrecorded tracks. But the best part was the stories that Glen Hansard told between the songs, for 5, 10 minutes at a time they’d all take a break from singing and he’d just tell a story about what the song was about, and really good, involving stories too.
One of the things about the Swell Season’s music is that it almost always, starts out very mellow and pathetic-sounding. But over the course of the song, it completely builds up, slowly but surely, into what seems like an entirely different song. One of the coolest examples of this during the concert was a very intense rendition of “The Moon”, which builds up pretty nicely in the real song but it still kind of retains a mellow tone. But during the concert, they went completely crazy, going one more verse (is that the right word?), then another, and just when you think they’ve hit the last verse, and they couldn’t possibly go any farther, they couldn’t possibly reach a higher peak of emotion, they go again, bringing in an electric guitar and then revving up the bass to supersonic levels up to a point where you think your soul is going to explode from too much emotion. And then, the song just dies down and you feel almost relieved, but in a really good way.
Here’s the original song.
And here’s a different live version, doesn’t go quite as far as what I saw in concert, but you can get the idea:
Another great performance was “Say It to Me Now”, with no mic on the voice. Just Glen Hansard singing out at the top of his voice to the entire hall. So, if you’ve never heard of them you should start out by seeing the film Once. It’s a perfect introduction to them and shows how beautifully music and film can merge sometimes.
And if you do know them then you should check their concert listings on their website to see them live because they are exceptional in concert.
HA! I went the whole review without saying “awesome” once! I am proud of myself.
