More Than Swell

Last night Ben and I were able to go to see The Swell Season at the Ryman here in Nashville. It was such a great show! Some people know I'm not a huge concert goer... it probably has to do with my bouts of socially crippling homebody-ness and my crowd-induced claustrophobia. Hmm, that last sentence made me sound a little neurotic - I'm exaggerating a little!

However, the Ryman is such an amazing venue - the atmosphere of the place just gets to you. You must in your lifetime make an effort to see a show there. And I was familiar with the Swell Season from their association with the movie Once. If you've seen that movie, then you know who they are too - the guy and girl from the film, Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova, tour as an actual musical group called The Swell Season, often (as they were last night) backed by most of Glen's other band, The Frames.

Anyway, that was a lot of build up to say that their music is really beautiful and emotional, a la their fellow Irishman Damien Rice. So even though I only knew a few of their songs, from the movie, going in, I still really loved the experience.

One very cool part was when Glen opened the show with the song that opens the movie, "Say It To Me Now." He walked out to the very front of the stage with his guitar, and without plugging in and sans mic, he just started playing. Everyone was pin-drop silent, just enraptured listening to his voice ringing out through the auditorium. Goosebumps moment!

Right away after that Marketa came out and they played "Falling Slowly," which was the main song from the movie and the song they performed (and with which they won) at the Oscars. I was a little surprised that they didn't save it for an encore or something but it was just lovely.

Here is a picture I found online so you can see the crazy damage to his guitar!

Glen told a really funny story of walking around Nashville and stopping in Gruhn's Guitars. He said since his current guitar was bound to give out at some point (the top is practically swiss cheese from years of aggressive strumming), he'd been on the lookout for the next one. He sat and played a vintage 1939 Martin for what seemed like hours, trying to justify the pricey purchase. As he talked with the staff he said, "I don't know, I just can't spend $6000 on a guitar." To which the staff member replied, "You read the tag wrong." He looked again and realized it was $16,000!!! The audience spent the rest of the night trying to convince him he deserved it and to go back and buy it. I guess we'll find out if he does!

He also played a cool Van Morrison cover of Astral Weeks (I had to google it, I didn't know that was what it was off the top of my head!) where he was literally strumming so fast and so hard that I thought his guitar was going to turn to sawdust. He did break a string!

Anyway, if they are coming to your town any time soon it was a great show and I highly recommend it! And if you haven't seen Once I recommend that too... although their Irish accents are so thick you'll have to watch with subtitles. And they say the F word a lot... because, well, they're Irish. :)