Another writer's songwriter

Just in case you haven't noticed, I have a few little obsessions--namely musicians. Pretty much, if they're in town, I'm there. (And sometimes when they're out of town, I'm there, but don't call me a groupie. I'm NOT A GROUPIE. Well, not much.)

So, sorry, lonnng concert review coming up. Don't like music? Go away. :-D Music is as entwined with writing for me as anything can be. It's my sixth sense.

If you do like music, hie thee to a Swell Season concert.

Last night, my husband and I (and another 1,000 folks or so) had the opportunity to see The Swell Season in concert at the Palladium Ballroom inside Gilley's in Dallas. This is the duo of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, the leads in Once, the indie movie that blew lots of folks out of the water last year--including other contenders for Best Song at the Academy Awards.

I wondered if the experience last night could possibly top the experience of seeing them last year at Stubb's BBQ in Austin. You know, they made the movie, the songs were all ready-made for touring, etc. Could they keep it up? But I suspected they were good for at least another tour after listening to previous CDs by the Frames, Hansard's long-lived band.

I wasn't disappointed. Not by a long shot. First, the Palladium is nearly perfect as long as you don't mind standing--and there are even nooks and crannies for sitting if you don't mind listening and not seeing. Todd and I got there early enough to score a good spot along a rail that lines the general floor, elevated two or three feet above it and topped off by a narrow bar that makes for good leaning and no back aches for the old folks. My son, my friend's son, and a few other students we know were crammed on the floor in front of the stage by choice--there was plenty of room to spread out behind them. They just wanted to be able to, as my son put it, "see him blink, yo." Still, we weren't more than 10 or 15 yards from the stage--plenty close to see any of them blink, if not in great detail.

So, Hansard and Irglova are amazing. Marketa is this diminutive Czech girl (she's barely 20!) with an angelic voice and huge presence without even asserting herself much during the show. Hansard is, in a few words, a singer, a poet, an evangelist, a politician, and a clown. He wore all those hats, and very well, in the course of their 2.5 hour concert.

Glen requested the management to turn off the air conditioning so they could sing their "quietest song," without the blowing overwhelming it, and nobody cared that it got a little stuffy while they sang "Falling Slowly" almost straight out of the gate. (Then the people who only knew one song were happy for the rest of the night, you know.)

He covered Justin Timberlake's Cry Me a River when the audience wouldn't let him away without it, perfected since he pulled it off first last year at Stubb's when we were there and someone from the audience yelled it as a request. After he did it last night, he yelled, "This better not show up on YouTube," and the audience responded with a collective, "Yeah, right!"

There were a few more covers--Daniel Johnston's Life in Vain, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks--and the band's violinist, Colm Mac Con Iomaire, played a cut from his newly released solo album, The Blue Shoes (which you can also see here). Haunting, beautiful.

They played old music and new music, from Glen, Marketa, and both together. In an extended encore, Marketa played If you want me (from Once), in her words, "for the women."

Glen introduced Fitzcarraldo, a Frames song, with the idea that if you're passionate about something but have come to a wall that won't come down, stop butting your head against it. Simply turn and walk another direction and you might discover that if you keep walking, you'll eventually come to the other side of the wall--even if it means you walked clear around the earth to get there and it took many years. Good reminder about creativity and persistence, and he speaks from experience--he's nearly 40.

Happiness is a song Glen sang without his guitar, and one I think deaf or hard of hearing readers might enjoy watching on video, because I'm not sure I've ever watched someone feel the music quite as much as he does. I wish there were a captioned one out there, but perhaps it will appear on the Austin City Limits special they recorded last weekend at the ACL festival.

Because the heart's a fool
A stranger to the rule
Because the love has grown
You had to leave alone

And if you've gotto go, go with happiness
And if you've gotto go, go with happiness

In a subtle turn toward the political, Glen introduced a song "from the perspective of a man who tells the truth about things that didn't happen." Lies (also from Once) is a song whose lyrics make me stop and listen carefully each time--not to mention gaze, enthralled, if I'm watching the one-of-its-kind scene in the movie. You can see him perform it here, if you'd like. And just a taste ...

The little cracks they escalated
And before you know it was too late
For making circles and telling lies

You're moving too fast for me

and i can't keep up with you

Maybe if you slow down for me

and you see you're only telling lies, lies, lies

Breaking us down with your

lies, lies, lies

When will you learn?

Glen ended the concert with an admonition. During this election season, it's been interesting to watch how many of my blog friends from outside the U.S. are as vocal, if not more so, than those of us right here at home. Glen took up that refrain by saying how they, as Europeans, are watching, waiting to see how things play out because everything we do as a country affects them, too.

The image came to me of a young boy sitting in Ireland, strumming his guitar and dreaming of America, but watching with both great fear and great hope as we tread a dangerous path. He basically boiled it down to asking each person in the audience to wake up on election day and take a walk to clear his or her head of all the b.s. (said in full, with wonderful Irish accent, of course) and propaganda from the television, radio, internet, and newspapers, and then go vote for the person we really believe will steady us again.

He finished with the song I've listened to over and over lately, thinking of how timely it was. He asked people to sing along on the chorus, and they did, and it was really quite inspiring. (Again, an old video, here)

People Get Ready (from The Cost/The Frames)

People all get ready
'Cos we're tearing down the stand
Rebuild what's gone unsteady
And see it through with newer hands
And what has gone between us
Is a lot, is a lot
And who'll be there to clean us
If you're not, if you're not

We have all the time in the world
To get it right, to get it right
We have all the love in the world
To set alight, to set alight