October 5, 2008

  • This past night, I went to see "The Swell Season" at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, CA. If you are not familiar with The Swell Season, this Irish folk rock band consists mainly of the two primary actors (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova) of the movie "Once," which I should point out won for best original song at the Academy Awards this year. Glen Hansard is also from the band "The Frames," whose members also made up the rest of the touring band for The Swell Season.

    This Swell Season concert at the Greek was one of my most anticipated shows to attend this year. The Greek Theater is a beautiful venue to see concerts at, however I've been avoiding trying to go to shows there because of one main issue; the stacked parking. If you don't know what stacked parking is, it's like being stuck in traffic, the cars in front, behind, and in your sides completely stopped, and there is no way for you to get out. Sucks doesn't it? Plus for $15, it's absolutely ridiculous. This time around however, I decided to do what a lot of others do to avoid the Greek's stacked parking, I parked my car in the residential areas about a mile away from the venue. Sure I had to walk about a mile up the hill just to see the concert, but I'm completely okay with that.

    By the time I got to the venue, the opening act "Iron & Wine" (which is really just singer songwriter Samuel Beam) was already playing. I wish I got to see the whole act, because as folk rock music goes, he wasn't bad. Samuel Beam seems pretty funny too, and I like his joke where he goes "I'm going to play something new, but then for those of you who've never heard of me, it's all new."

    From 9PM to exactly 11PM, main act "The Swell Season" was simply phenomenal. Their whole show was like a musical experience that celebrates the craft of making music. The art of expressing your soul through song. The show also had a very intimate atmosphere, and it felt like we were all just lounging around the family dining room, and some friends or relatives decides to whip out some musical instruments and proceeded to play a bunch of songs.

    Part of the band's charm is frontman Glen Hansard who is just so easy to pay attention to, what with his witty humor and moments where he just rambles on about the meaning behind the song they are about to play. In fact at one moment when he was trying to explain a song, somebody in the audience yelled an impatient "c'mon," which resulted in some funny banter by Glen about how he was interrupted, poking a little fun at himself and the audience. There was also another moment where Glen was pretty much having a conversation with somebody towards the back of the venue, because that guy wanted to request a specific song for them to play. At one point of the night when the band was transitioning between songs, a group of the audience started singing the song "My Girl" (The Temptations), and Glen proceeds to sing the song as well, which encourages everybody to sing along. Glen happily pointed out afterwards how we all had a huge group jam session right there and then.

    Glen Hansard also showed some furious guitar strumming for one song, which as he points out always forces the guitar to go out of tune, and it's funny seeing him tune the guitar every time right after some of those fast strummings. For the song "Say it to me now," he played the song unplugged and proceeds to perform it with no assist from the mic and speakers. It was impressive how quiet everything got in the venue, and all you slightly hear is Glen's voice and the sound of his guitar. I'm pretty sure the people towards the back were probably straining their ears trying to hear the song though.

    Marketa Irglova was no slouch either, as she performed several of her songs that she sang. Mar's voice is definitely untraditional for a singer, but then I would say that she sings really well for someone who has english as a second language. Along with the piano, she also played the guitar a couple of times as well, which I didn't know she was able to do.

    Glen talked about a person the band befriended in the past year that turned out to be Richard Sherman, who is half of the brothers duo team who are probably most famous for all the Disney songs they've composed throughout the years. Richard Sherman was at the show, and much to the surprise and delight of all of us in the audience, he got on the piano on stage and performed "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." Another nice random moment was the appearance of the director/writer of their movie "Once;" John Carney, who surprisingly got on the bass guitar and performed with Glen and Marketa for one song. At one point, their violinist Colm Mac Con Iomaire also did a solo performance of one of his original works. Afterwards, as Glen says "in the spirit of the night," Samuel Beam of Iron & Wine joined the band on stage, and sang one song with them.

    All of those memorable unexpected moments helps cement how such a great night this was. They played almost all my favorite songs of theirs, performed new ones, and cover songs, which to my delight ended up becoming a much bigger set list than I was originally expecting from them. The overall experience was just wonderful, and I can easily honestly say that this concert will go down as one of my all time favorites. The Swell Season probably won't be back here in the U.S. until next year or possibly the year after, but when they do, you bet I'm going to be there.