After catching The Swell Season’s incredible set at the Opera House last year, I was keen for a second helping. They’ve added a few songs to the set since then, but really nothing much has changed.
We were warmed up by Leroy Lee, a promising singer-songwriter who seemed very much in awe of his surroundings. He told us he’d played to larger crowds in the last three shows than he had in three years, and those nerves showed a little. But the songs ranged from quietly pleasant to amazing. There are so many singer-songwriters delivering folk music on an acoustic guitar, but his plucky female double bassist brought something new. I’m not sure I’d catch Leroy’s set again, particularly as it put my husband to sleep, but I really liked what I heard.
While the crowd listened attentively to Leroy Lee, it erupted for The Swell Season. Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova, and The Frames are a very special act indeed. While they won the Academy Award for best song from a movie a few years back, they’re not the darlings of commercial radio or the indie press. To love them is to be in on a little secret, to be part of a club brought together for listening to music as it should be played.
The set drew heavily from the soundtrack of that movie, Once, and their latest album Strict Joy. As a collective the music swelled, as it were, a rich tapestry of acoustic guitar, piano, electric mandolin, fiddle, and more. While the sound wasn’t as lush when the band members took to the stage individually it was often more compelling. Glen Hansard attacked the guitar, his voice ravaged with emotion as he sang two of my personal favorites, “Say It To Me Now” and “Leave.” Marketa Irglova’s introspective version of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” almost brought me undone. This was music that really meant something.
Not that the band doesn’t know how to have fun. Even Czech Marketa seems to have inherited the Irish cheek of her bandmates. She shared the way the boys in her home country hit girls with sticks around the leg as a strange Easter custom, while Glen told us of the time he bought a funeral plot as a grand gesture for a teenage love interest. The quirky tales and wide smiles helped to balance the music that oft times is so raw it’s unbearable.
Another special moment came when the band brought part Aboriginal, part Cherokee singer LJ Hill to the stage. They’d stumbled across his set during Bluesfest and awestruck by his soulful music, urged him to join them for a song. Hearing his very distinctly Australian lyrics juxtaposed with The Swell Season’s lush instrumentation was something I won’t forget.
This was a concert experience as it should be, a coming together of audience and band to create something organic and beautiful. In true Irish tradition, the band left us with the time honoured folk tune “Parting Glass,” encouraging us to sing the refrain “Good night and joy be with you all.” To The Swell Season we raised our proverbial glass, bidding them farewell until they make their return.
