you have all your clothes on inside out, I'm listening
I just got back from seeing The Swell Season, which tonight was 3/5 of The Frames (Glen, Joe and Colm), along with Marketa Irglova and a French cellist whose name escapes me. For those of you who have somehow managed to escape the fact despite knowing me (and also perhaps thassalia) Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are the stars of the movie Once.
I did not come out of the show with that lighter-than-air feeling I always get on the way home from a Frames show, which is always this magical feeling of connection between me, and the other members of the audience, and the people on stage. Combine this with laughing and jumping and dancing and screaming and singing myself hoarse, and the disconnect between mind and body suddenly becomes something profound, rather than troubling or scary.
Part of the problem for me was the venue: The Crystal Ballroom is nice, but I can't stand for five hours straight, and the only seats are way the hell in the back of the room, too far to be at all intimate. Part of the problem was the audience, which seemed to consist mostly of people who had seen the movie and maybe listened to the movie soundtrack. So when they did classic Frames tunes like "I Want My Life To Make More Sense" and "Star Star," not only was the audience not particularly enthused, they also did not turn the entire venue into a giant singalong, which is usually one of my favorite parts.
This makes it sound like I didn't like the show, which is of course not the case at all. Glen Hansard is still Glen Hansard, and he could stand up on stage for two hours and tell twee little stories from his childhood and not sing a single note, and I would still be dazzled. And there were definitely a couple of times when I got that tingly, breathless feeling and I damn well almost cried, like when he stood at the front of the stage and played "Say It To Me Now" very first of all, totally without the benefit of the sound system, because they were having trouble getting it working. It helped that this is both a prominent song in the movie and a classic Frames song. I don't think anyone so much as moved the entire time. Later, when he sang "Leave," which is one of my favorite new songs on the soundtrack, it was the same, only with the full band and, you know, plugged in and everything.
But what I want to tell you about most are the many amusing stories and the stage antics, which I think there were more of than usual. Someone in the audience, at one point, shouted out "Tell us about your first kiss!" I'm really hoping this person didn't mean Glen and Marketa, because, hello, tacky - but it was irrelevant anyway, because Glen paused and started the story, "I was thirteen..." And went on to tell about being in love with the neighbor girl, and one night both their parents were out and she was locked out of her house, so she came over and hung out with him. He likened this to how he used to put a tape recorder on top of the garden shed, and put pieces of bread all around it to attract the birds, and how later he'd go sit in his wardrobe and play the tape of the birds chirping. (Seriously, how adorable is that?) He ended with, "Having her in my kitchen that night was a bit like that." (Adorable.)
Then there was the story about how after his show last night, their manager came into their dressing room and said, "There's someone who wants to meet you," and in walked Bill Gates...while Glen was sitting there messing around with his MacBook. (Hilarious and adorable.)
And finally, two stories about people giving him guitars. One was about a chat he had with a guy the other night, basically talking shop about guitars, and Glen mentioned that he was looking for a sort of jazz-box type Gibson - some specific guitar that's evidently hard to find. And how he walked into his dressing room tonight and there was the guitar. He did not say who this guy was, but how awesome a gift is that? Glen used it to play a very stripped-down verison of "I Want My Life To Make More Sense," supposedly playing it for the first time right there in front of us.
Then there was the story about how, playing in Japan recently, he mentioned that his guitar - the iconic one, which the holes in it from being played since he was a kid - was "home," since it was a Takamine guitar, made it Japan. And one of the heads of that company was there, and presented him with a new Takamine guitar. Because apparently they were embarrassed by his guitar with all the holes in it. That just cracked me up. (He also mentioned that they stayed in the Lost in Translation hotel and that he felt like Bill Murray. I just...my love cannot be textually rendered.)
Toward the end of the night, he stopped one of the songs to run to the back of the stage and shout, "Far!" and then come running back to the front for, "Near!" And then repeat it a few times.
In total opposition to Glen's almost manic stage presence, Marketa Irglova seems...shy, I think, is the word I would use. I heard some people using "reserved," but that didn't strike me as the case.
There were a couple of things that could have made the show more ideally-suited to my tastes, because of course it is all about me - for instance, I love Joe Doyle, and I didn't even know it was him on bass until the very end, because he was sitting back in a dark corner the whole time. But really, a great deal of it was the audience, and I cannot begrudge them a single person there tonight because of the movie, because this has obviously been an amazing experience for them, which he made sure to mention many many times.
Finally, standing in line criminally early to get one of the very limited seats, I happened to be standing right there when Glen passed by to get back on the bus before the show. I'm more of a "don't bug them" type of person, but his almost embarrassed pleasure at seeing people already lined up got me smiling and set the stage for a really enjoyable night.
I did not come out of the show with that lighter-than-air feeling I always get on the way home from a Frames show, which is always this magical feeling of connection between me, and the other members of the audience, and the people on stage. Combine this with laughing and jumping and dancing and screaming and singing myself hoarse, and the disconnect between mind and body suddenly becomes something profound, rather than troubling or scary.
Part of the problem for me was the venue: The Crystal Ballroom is nice, but I can't stand for five hours straight, and the only seats are way the hell in the back of the room, too far to be at all intimate. Part of the problem was the audience, which seemed to consist mostly of people who had seen the movie and maybe listened to the movie soundtrack. So when they did classic Frames tunes like "I Want My Life To Make More Sense" and "Star Star," not only was the audience not particularly enthused, they also did not turn the entire venue into a giant singalong, which is usually one of my favorite parts.
This makes it sound like I didn't like the show, which is of course not the case at all. Glen Hansard is still Glen Hansard, and he could stand up on stage for two hours and tell twee little stories from his childhood and not sing a single note, and I would still be dazzled. And there were definitely a couple of times when I got that tingly, breathless feeling and I damn well almost cried, like when he stood at the front of the stage and played "Say It To Me Now" very first of all, totally without the benefit of the sound system, because they were having trouble getting it working. It helped that this is both a prominent song in the movie and a classic Frames song. I don't think anyone so much as moved the entire time. Later, when he sang "Leave," which is one of my favorite new songs on the soundtrack, it was the same, only with the full band and, you know, plugged in and everything.
But what I want to tell you about most are the many amusing stories and the stage antics, which I think there were more of than usual. Someone in the audience, at one point, shouted out "Tell us about your first kiss!" I'm really hoping this person didn't mean Glen and Marketa, because, hello, tacky - but it was irrelevant anyway, because Glen paused and started the story, "I was thirteen..." And went on to tell about being in love with the neighbor girl, and one night both their parents were out and she was locked out of her house, so she came over and hung out with him. He likened this to how he used to put a tape recorder on top of the garden shed, and put pieces of bread all around it to attract the birds, and how later he'd go sit in his wardrobe and play the tape of the birds chirping. (Seriously, how adorable is that?) He ended with, "Having her in my kitchen that night was a bit like that." (Adorable.)
Then there was the story about how after his show last night, their manager came into their dressing room and said, "There's someone who wants to meet you," and in walked Bill Gates...while Glen was sitting there messing around with his MacBook. (Hilarious and adorable.)
And finally, two stories about people giving him guitars. One was about a chat he had with a guy the other night, basically talking shop about guitars, and Glen mentioned that he was looking for a sort of jazz-box type Gibson - some specific guitar that's evidently hard to find. And how he walked into his dressing room tonight and there was the guitar. He did not say who this guy was, but how awesome a gift is that? Glen used it to play a very stripped-down verison of "I Want My Life To Make More Sense," supposedly playing it for the first time right there in front of us.
Then there was the story about how, playing in Japan recently, he mentioned that his guitar - the iconic one, which the holes in it from being played since he was a kid - was "home," since it was a Takamine guitar, made it Japan. And one of the heads of that company was there, and presented him with a new Takamine guitar. Because apparently they were embarrassed by his guitar with all the holes in it. That just cracked me up. (He also mentioned that they stayed in the Lost in Translation hotel and that he felt like Bill Murray. I just...my love cannot be textually rendered.)
Toward the end of the night, he stopped one of the songs to run to the back of the stage and shout, "Far!" and then come running back to the front for, "Near!" And then repeat it a few times.
In total opposition to Glen's almost manic stage presence, Marketa Irglova seems...shy, I think, is the word I would use. I heard some people using "reserved," but that didn't strike me as the case.
There were a couple of things that could have made the show more ideally-suited to my tastes, because of course it is all about me - for instance, I love Joe Doyle, and I didn't even know it was him on bass until the very end, because he was sitting back in a dark corner the whole time. But really, a great deal of it was the audience, and I cannot begrudge them a single person there tonight because of the movie, because this has obviously been an amazing experience for them, which he made sure to mention many many times.
Finally, standing in line criminally early to get one of the very limited seats, I happened to be standing right there when Glen passed by to get back on the bus before the show. I'm more of a "don't bug them" type of person, but his almost embarrassed pleasure at seeing people already lined up got me smiling and set the stage for a really enjoyable night.