*crosses this one off the bucket list*
As you may or may not know I have a thing for Irish musicians....and right up there (next to Damien Rice) is Glen Hansard - frontman of The Frames and half of the duo The Swell Season. He is an incredibly talented musician and I have been dreaming of seeing him live for years. I had tickets to The Frames' 25th Anniversary show at the Iveagh Gardens in Dublin but travel plans changed and I couldn't make it - absolutely devastating I know! But to my surprise, after I booked a trip to Vancouver for a friend's bridal shower I found out that Glen Hansard was playing at The Orpheum while I was there!! The music gods were smiling on me and I had another chance to see Glen. He also recently came out with a second solo album "Didn't he ramble" that I listened to on repeat during the 3 hour drive to the airport (small town life).
It was one of the best shows of my life. Glen walked onto the stage (to a standing ovation) singing the emotional "Grace beneath the pines" without a microphone. His raw chill-inducing voice traveled through the packed theater and it was like a spell came over us all.
Next he picked up his (extremely worn) guitar and his band joined in and they played some incredibly beautiful and powerful music intermixed with Glens hilarious commentary and stories of his him and friends back in Ireland (a friend who "is a really good friend, but a total disaster". Some of his stories were quite long but he had the audience transfixed the entire time and kept us laughing with his self-deprecating humor. If music didn't work out for him I bet he would be a great stand up comedian.
He was accompanied by the cello, the violin, stand up base, electric guitar, drums, trumpet, trombone, saxophone, and the incredible pianist Thomas Bartlett (also in The Gloaming and The National). Hearing his songs live with so many instruments was a hundred times better than the album. He played mostly songs from "Didn't he ramble". My favourite was probably "McCormack's Wall" when he told us a story of a magical drunken night in Dublin and then sat at the piano and played this beautiful song with the violin accompanying him. The song ends with an irish jig on the fiddle and I know I was probably smiling from ear to ear.
For his encore he played a song from the edge of the balcony and then he played "Falling Slowly" which he dedicated to Marketa Irglova (or "a girl who he keeps buying piano's for" as he sweetly referred to his band-mate from The Swell Season). He let a girl from the audience jump on stage and sing the duet with him which I thought was pretty cool of him. The last song that he played was "Mercy" which is a very powerful song with lots of horns and he brought out this amazing gospel singer tto sing it with him and she KILLED IT! It took the song to a whole other level. It was incredibly epic. What a way to end the show. But it wasn't quite over yet. He stood at the front of the stage holding hands with all the other musicians in a line and they sang an old irish song taking turns singing the verses with the crowd singing the chorus together. It was magical. It felt like we were all friends in a small pub in Ireland, not strangers in a huge theater in Vancouver. It's amazing the way music can make you feel.
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