The Swell Season in Concert

Tonight I saw The Swell Season (aka the people from "Once") @ the Radio City Music Hall.

I love walking thru the RCMH. It always blows my mind that this piece of history was nearly reduced to rubble a couple decades ago. And the best thing is that so much of it is frozen in time. For instance - the hand dryers in the Ladies Room are run by a foot pedal. Granted it is just a few feet away from a modern day plastic changing table but still... ;)

Even though it was a sold out show it didn't seem as crazy as it was when I saw the Christmas Spectacular. Although they were still selling drinks that had parts that glowed in the dark. It was fun during the holidays but during this concert it seemed horribly out of place, tacky and distracting. Once the lights went down if someone decided they absolutely couldn't enjoy the concert w/out one then that's all you'd see bobbing thru the seats and pulling your focus as you tried to enjoy the concert.

One lady seated ahead of me did not get a glow drink but rather opted to pull out her floss and make sure her teeth were clear of the dinner she had earlier. I wondered where she put the floss when she was done...

The opening act was a group (Interference) that also appeared on the "Once" soundtrack and later came out to join The Swell Season in order to sing "Gold". The lead singer is in a wheelchair and I thought it was nice that everyone else on stage gets on his level whether it be sitting on a chair or on the floor when he is singing.

The Swell Season started their concert much like the movie "Once" w/ Glen Hansard standing in front of the mike w/ his guitar and singing, " Say it to me now". Awesome.

The rest of the group joined him after that and Glen talked to the crowd a lot giving an introduction to each song - "This song is about..." Many of them dealt w/ how unreasoning love can make a person or how impossible it is to try and put reason to love. One example he gave was that your heart is like a lion driving a train on ice and your brain says, "watch out for those rocks ahead" and your heart says, "F- the rocks!"

Because he was letting the "F-word" fly quite a bit he did give an Irish disclaimer to young ears in the audience.

Marketa Irglova's family was in the audience (they came over from the Czech Republic). She invited her sister up on stage to sing a song that was on The Wicker Man soundtrack. Having not seen The Wicker Man I was a little surprised by the lyrics of "Gently Johnny" as initially it seemed like a sweet moment w/ these 2 sisters singing @ RCMH and then it just got creepy.

Other moments -

They sang 2 Van Morrison songs and rocked the house. I think the audience might have gotten into those more than their original songs.

Glen kept trying to get the audience to sing along and then towards the end of the show he referenced his Irish heritage again and said that a show can't be over til everyone sings!

You could tell they were totally in awe of being on the stage @ RCMH and in a sold out show! Glen said that 2 years ago they passed RCMH and he pointed it out to Marketa and she had no idea how it was significant. He explained that it is the place to play. At the time they were just excited to have a sold out show of 150 people @ Pianos!

One of their band members had just recently finished an album and we found out that it was his album being played while people settled in before the concert, in between sets and after (it was available for sale @ the concert, too). They exited at one point and let him perform one of his songs. I have to say, they are a very supportive group and seem to be all about spreading the wealth of their good fortune.

Every time there was a moment of silence the audience felt the need to shout things (maybe it was those that were under the influence of glow drinks). One person said - New York Loves You! And he replied - What a lovely idea. Then someone wanted him to sing the "Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy". He did and then said that they put all this hard work into putting together the concert and that song is probably what people would remember from the night!

Other spontaneous moments included - Glen randomly went into a line from Arthur's Theme - "Between the Moon & New York City" and also went into a line from "Pure Imagination" and said he was just going w/ the moment...

Although performing at Radio City was a milestone for them I can't help but think they probably feel more @ home in a pub-type atmosphere. And having been to concerts at MSG and RCMH now, I have to say I prefer RCMH. :)