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SWELL SEASON
Meymandi Concert Hall (Raleigh, NC)
May 15, 2008

(NO DEPRESSION.NET) -- As he introduced "Falling Slowly" to the sold-out crowd, Swell Season frontman Glen Hansard offered up an amusing metaphor to explain the mixed-blessing of winning an Oscar for Best Song. It's sort of like kicking a football to the end of the garden, he suggested, and then watching as it goes past the garden, over the wall, over the river, past the next town, and beyond a town you've never even heard of.

"About 7/8ths of you is thinking, 'I can't believe I just kicked the ball that far,'" Hansard marveled. "And that other 1/8th of you is thinking, 'I want my fookin' ball back.'"

Hansard knows all too well that without the runaway train of "Falling Slowly", he'd still be playing to a couple hundred folks in a nightclub with his longtime band the Frames, rather than playing to 1,700 in a symphony hall with his Once film co-star Marketa Irglova (plus most of the Frames providing subtle accompaniment). If part of him feels protective of the artistic heart of their "little song that could," he can perhaps take some comfort in knowing that it really was neither he nor Irglova who kicked the ball; rather it was his old Frames mate John Carney, who wrote and directed Once, and launched "Falling Slowly" into the stratosphere with his brilliant placement of the song at a key plot-point in the movie and then again in the film's transcendent final scene.

In concert, "Falling Slowly" -- which Hansard and Irglova wrote together -- still retains all its simple and heartfelt charm, regardless of the mass media attention. That said, it's far from the only great moment in Hansard's catalogue. Through more than half a dozen albums with the Frames plus the Swell Season record with Irglova and the Once soundtrack, he's built up an impressive body of work, as this two-hours-plus performance attested.

Exactly what constitutes the entity known as the Swell Season isn't entirely clear. While it was Hansard and Irglova who made the 2006 album bearing that name (several of the disc's songs ended up in Once), the present touring entity includes three members of the Frames (violinist Colm Mac Con Iomaire, bassist Joe Doyle and guitarist Rob Bochnik), plus drummer Graham Hopkins. There's obviously some blurring of the lines between the Hansard/Irglova duo and the Frames collective which perhaps remains to be sorted out for future projects.

No matter. Musically they work wonderfully together, whether backing Hansard or Irglova's spotlight turns at center stage, or as an equal-footing ensemble on full-band-oriented numbers. The show's pacing involved frequent turns in and out of those configurations: Hansard began the show solo -- sans amplification, singing and playing his beat-up acoustic guitar from the edge fo the stage -- with "Say It To Me Now" (a song from Once that first appeared on the 1996 Frames album Fitzcarraldo), before being joined by Irglova at the microphone for "All The Way Down". Mac Con Iomaire, Doyle and Bochnik entered next, providing exquisitely understated support on "Lies"; call this version of the band "Chamber Frames," perhaps.

When drummer Hopkins was added a couple songs later for "When Your Mind's Made Up" -- another Once highlight that first appeared on the Swell Season disc (and also on the Frames' 2007 disc The Cost) -- the intensity was cranked up a notch, though they quickly brought it back down for a couple of new numbers: "Your Love Makes Me Cheerful", which built from a slow-burning, Dusty In Memphis vibe to a swelling midsection highlighted by a dramatic piano roll from Irglova; and "On My Mind", an Irglova song that recalled the balladry of Canadian chanteuse Jane Siberry.

After "Falling Slowly", Hansard took a three-song solo turn, delivering the Once song "Leave" and providing an extended, hilarious introduction to the Frames gem "Lay Me Down" (about how the song was inspired by his offbeat gift of a gravesite to a teenage goth girlfriend) before launching into what may well have been the evening's highlight, a passionate, exuberant rendition of Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks".

Irglova returned for a duet with Hansard on a cover of the early Pixies tune "Cactus". (At other shows they've used this slot to sing Michelle Shocked's punkish "Fogtown"; the character of Irglova's voice would suggest that perhaps an X cover might be worth working in to future sets.) When the rest of the band returned, the decision to take an audience member's request for the Frames song "Rise" paid nice dividends, as it was one of the most resplendent performances of the night, highlighted by Mac Con Iomaire's beautiful violin work.

Hansard dropped his acoustic guitar and played the actor on the new "Go With Happiness", going full-on theatric with his arm gestures and facial expressions and serving as a sort of emotional conductor during the non-vocal passages. The Frames tune "True" and the Once title track were somewhat anticlimactic set-closers, but the encore was an enjoyable and extended hodge-podge, including Irglova's Once showcase track "If You Want Me", a solo violin turn by Mac Con Iomaire called "The Blue Shoes", and even a guest appearance by the band's tour manager to strum and sing Steve Earle's "The Mountain".

By the time they wrapped up with the Frames' lullaby-esque "Star Star" -- weaving in bits of the Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory classic "Pure Imagination" along the way, and turning over lead vocals to surprisingly smooth-voiced bassist Joe Doyle for the song's conclusion -- the six-piece aggregation had more than charmed the crowd. "We're five men and one woman singin' our hearts out for you, and we're just hoping it's translating," Hansard offered up as the show wound down. No worries, mate.

-- PETER BLACKSTOCK
Copyright c. 2008 No Depression Inc. and/or Peter Blackstock.