Caught The Swell Season last night at the
Keller in Portland. This is Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova from the movie Once, augmented by three side musicians and guest appearances by the opening act and even a kid Hansard and Marketa met on the riverfront earlier in the day (yes – I will get there).
I saw the two last year before their
Oscar win for best song, at the
Crystal Ballroom – a much smaller venue than the Keller. I reviewed that concert
here, and the movie Once
here.
I was wondering if I would like the show last night better than the pre-Oscar big-time-fame show last year. My gut told me I’d prefer the last one better, but I gotta say, I really enjoyed last night. They were a bit more confident (especially Marketa) but the down-home feel was just as present.
By being a street performer in Ireland from age 13 through 18, Hansard honed his skills for getting an audience involved and is now translating that skill to these newfound BIG audiences.
For example, he’ll have the whole audience whistle a tune, or whisper a line over and over – well beyond the usual ‘clap alongs’ that most performers will try to get out of their audience. It made for some pretty cool moments. You wonder if they are on the bus thinking, “what can we get the audience to do for us tonight?’ Reminds me of Jim Morrison from The Doors where he would try and purposely get the audience angry in his own bizarre live ‘social experiments.’
This tour has been reviewed elsewhere on the Web with full set lists and the names of who exactly were onstage, so I am going to bypass that part. I will say, though, that the addition of
Rónán Ó Snodaigh and
Liam Ó Maonlaí (founder of
Hothouse Flowers) as the openers was a smart idea. These two were Hansard’s “mentors” when he was a street musician and having them open, and join the rest of his band off and on throughout the night, was like having his teachers perform with him. And they were fantastic, adding a very traditional Irish bend to the whole thing, in both what songs they performed and what instruments they played.
Then there was Joseph the guest star. If the story is to be believed, Hansard and Irglova were strolling through Portland before the gig and ran into this kid who for some reason clicked with the two. Long story short, Hansard tells the tale and has the kid come all the way down from the nosebleed orchestra section to sing a song onstage. He does Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl) by Looking Glass (one hit wonder from 1972) to the first standing ovation of the night.
The evening was full of these moments, as well as the great music I expected. We got all the Once music, a few solid new songs, and older songs by Hansard’s band The Frames, done in new ways with this lineup and format. There were even a couple of covers – one of the best was a version of Into the Mystic by Van Morrison that closed the set, before an encore that was about two songs too long. We also got the obligatory long, rambling, funny song intros by Hansard that in some cases were about as long as the songs he played after the intro!
The thing that is most cool about Glen Hansard is that after winning the Oscar and obtaining the level of success he now has, he could have gone in a glitzy direction. You know, a whiz-bang stage design; Some top name hired guns onstage; Expensive clothes, new equipment.
But what the guy decides to do is call up his old busking friends and bring them on the road. Not only as the openers, but to join him onstage to augment his band. He also gives everyone in his band a spotlight – from a violin solo spot to the bass player singing a verse to a song.
No, the only new trapping I noticed was a bigger, nicer bus outside. The guy seems to have maintained his humble nature and is taking advantage of the new success to spread it around instead of hoarding it. He and Irglova understand that sometimes the sum is much bigger than the added value of all the parts and having talented musicians around doesn’t detract attention from the main stars, but rather augments the spotlight and – really – just makes for a much better show overall.
Caught The Swell Season last night at the Keller in Portland. This is Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova from the movie Once, augmented by three side musicians and guest appearances by the opening act and even a kid Hansard and Marketa met on the riverfront earlier in the day (yes – I will get there).
Picking up where we left off last week, the AP reports that Roger Waters launched a giant inflatable pig during his Coachella performance that said, among other things, "Don't be led to the slaughter" and "Fear builds walls."
Not typically known for his political opinions (yes that was a joke), Roger Waters wants us all to vote for Obama, because he thinks Hilary Clinton will invade Iran.
This one flew under the radar like a giant inflatable pig - Floyd drummer Nick Mason recently alluded to more Floyd reunion shows in the future.
Alex Lifeson's home in Rosedale, Ontario is on the market. For a cool $5,699,000, you can move right in and enjoy the 6,000 square feet, complete with "Entertaining Spaces Stylishly Finished W/Sophisticated Accents."
Rush's Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee are on a media rampage right now, doing loads of radio and press interviews for the second leg of the Snakes and Arrows tour, which began a few days ago.
I have been bitching that due to weird tour routing and open heart surgery procedures, Asia have continually missed bringing its reunion tour to the Northwest. And with the apparent imminent return of Yes later this year, who knows what the status of Asia will be?
Kind of cool news today. From the Herald-Sun:
Stumbled on this gem from RushIsABand.com. Seems that at the recent NAMM show, amp manufacturer Hughes & Kettner had one of their signature Alex Lifeson TriAmps on display.
Journey, with its fourth singer, will hit the road this summer on a big classic rock tour that also includes Heart and Cheap Trick.
I have played off and on the last few months with singer songwriter Matt Vrba, whose brand of 'high octane Americana' has caught the ear of Nashville Star, a countrified version of American Idol.
Sort of.
I watched the last couple of VH1 Rock Honors shows and found them kind of lacking. Seemed like the bands they chose were so past their primes that live sets trying to capture the old magic fell flat.
Just saw that Neil Aspinall died at age 66.
You want to fly on Iron Maiden's plane? Noooo problem!
Iron Maiden is following in the footsteps of Radiohead, who decided to make their new CD "In Rainbows" available for download for whatever the consumer wished to pay for it (including $0). Later, when it was released as an actual CD, it shot to the top of the charts.
Looks like Tom Scholtz is taking the latest version of Boston on the road.
CNN is reporting that Paul McCartney will get out of his marriage to Heather Mills by paying her $35 million plus $15 million of assets (would 150,000 copies of the Beatles butcher album take care of it, luv?).
MelodicRock.com posted sound bites from the new ASIA album, Phoenix. First of all, I never thought this album would see the light of day, and if it did, it would suck hard. Well, I was wrong on the first count at least - it's coming out April 11.
This is a kick. I don't post about high-tech too much, even though that is my job outside of blogging and jamming. But this is too much:
This is great. 69-year-old Dawn Wells, famous for playing the uber hot Mary Anne on Gilligan's Island, was busted for having pot in her car.
I posted about famed hard rock photographer Ross Halfin last October. I told you all to check his daily diary entries, dating all the way back to 2002.
So, I have had months to listen off and on the XM Radio's Led Zeppelin channel (it's channel 59, if you really want to know). I blogged about the concept when I first found out about it, here.
A Reuters article this morning says that Van Halen has postponed upcoming shows on the reunion tour due to Eddie requiring "medical testing for an undisclosed condition."
For anyone who has spent time in a recording studio, you know how jarring it is to isolate one track of a full band recording - to hear just the lead guitar for example. Or just the drums. But isolating the vocals is always the most dodgy.
