Swell Season in full bloom
Posted on May 8th, 2008 – 1:27 PMBy Chris Riemenschneider
As you can read in the full review (look for it online at www.startribune.com/music), last night’s Swell Season show — a k a “Once” stars Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova — was downright bipolar. Hansard spent five minutes telling hilarious but never brief stories, then another five minutes singing his wrenching songs. The music did get as playful as the banter in the encore, though, as they worked in Willie Wonka lines into “Star Star” and had a gay old time playing “The Auld Triangle” with Damien Dempsey (whose opening set was a real charmer, too).
Please let us know your thoughts on the show. Here’s the setlist. *= Frames tunes
Say It To Me Now / All the Way Down / Lies / This Low / Drown Out / When Your Mind’s Made Up / new song (sung by Marketa) / Falling Slowly / Glen solo: Leave / What Happens When the Heart Just Stops* / Lay Me Down* / new song: Go With Happiness (Glen sang) / cover #1: Fogtown (Michelle Shocked) / cover #2: Model (Kraftwerk) / Once
Encore: If You Want Me / Blue Shoes (solo by violinist Colm Mac Con Ionaire) / Fitzcarraldo* / Star Star* / cover #3: Hotellounge (Belgian band Deus) / The Auld Triangle
8 Responses to "Swell Season in full bloom"
It should be pointed out that after the song, Hanserd did say he should rethink the kicked ball metaphor because it seemed a bit ungrateful to refer to it like that.
[…] Chris Riemenschneider wrote an interesting post today on Swell Season in full bloomHere’s a quick excerptSwell Season in full bloom As you can read in the full review (look for it online at http://www.startribune.com/music), last night’s Swell Season show — a k a “Once” stars Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova — was downright bipolar. Hansard spent five minutes telling hilarious but never short story, then… Read the full post from Pop Life Tags: main, Concerts via Blogdigger blog search for music. […]
[…] Swell Season in full bloom As you can read in the full review (look for it online at http://www.startribune.com/music), last night’s Swell Season show — a k a “Once” stars Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova — was downright bipolar. Hansard spent five minutes telling hilarious but never short story, then… […]
I thought they were amazing. Each in their own right, and especially together. You can FEEL what they are feeling. It’s raw, honest and true. It started off perfectly with Glen doing Say It to Me Now all alone - I could see him on the streets of Ireland. I will be seeing them again.
I thought the concert Wednesday night was absolutely wonderful. Glen, Markéta and the rest of the musicians brought the music from the movie Once to life on-stage, which is more than I could’ve hoped for. The pitch-perfect harmonies of the two leads and the very solid instrumentation by a strong group of backing musiciasns was a joy to hear performed live.
Glen Hansard is truly a charming fellow and the emotion that he, Markéta and the rest of The Swell Season bring to their songs is real and palpable. I can only hope that they continue to create such beautiful and haunting music in the future and that they continue to tour to support their recordings. I would definitely go see The Swell Season again, if they were to come back to the Twin Cities!
it was a pretty sweet show, but certainly doesn’t hit the highs of The Frames live unfortunately
hopefully the next time they come back to town they get more than 400 people out to see them…
i was hoping for a bit better setlist, but ah well. The Frames songs were certainly the highlights for me. really wanted to hear their amazing cover of Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” or even “Forever Young”
oh, Chris
Say It To Me Now is also originally a Frames song, from 1996’s “Fitzcarraldo” album
Belted review but Sell Season wases emoshional adn in tone with teh audience,
