Wow. What an incredible concert.

So, I just got back from seeing the Swell Season at the El Rey Theatre. You may know the members of the band, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, as the stars of the movie Once. Or you may know Glen Hansard as the singer of my favorite band, The Frames. If you don’t know them at all, take this opportunity to acquaint yourself.

The set list followed their performance for NPR’s Live Concert Series. One of the things I like best about listening to a performance by The Frames, or just Glen Hansard, is that he’s a storyteller and he gives some history (true or not) about what’s behind a particular song. I like making a song my own, but I also like knowing what the song means to the singer.

“Drown Out” comes from a story about a friend of his in Dublin. She and her husband apparently are into exorcism/the paranormal/ghost busting. One night, her husband had something come on him not of himself. His wife, realizing this, asked who was there. “We come from the dark.” She shooed them away, whoever they were. Later, her husband said next time it happened, she should really talk to them and find out how to help them. Sure enough, it happened again and she asked who they were. “We come from the dark.” She asked them to be a little more specific, and Glen said they apparently described themselves as young kids born mentally handicapped back in the dark ages, killed for supposedly being possessed by demons. Ever since, they’ve been walking in darkness and one day they saw two lights way out on the horizon. They walked for years and years until they finally reached the two lights, which turned out to be the inside of her husband’s eyes. Strange, but interesting story.

Glen described “This Low” as a song about days where you know in the end it’s going to be a good day, but you just have to make it through the rough spots first.

“Say It to Me Now” is a song Glen wrote for his grandparents. He always saw them fighting and arguing when he was little, but he knew they must have loved each other. During the performance of this song, Glen knocked something loose on one of his guitar pedals and lost all the volume from his acoustic guitar (the one with the big hole where the pick guard should be). It happened just as the first chorus ended, so he finished the line a capella and gave his guitar a couple strums. He bent down, held up his forefinger to say, “One moment, please,” and tried to get the volume back. The audience didn’t really know what he was doing, so they laughed. He stood back up and said, “If you’ll be really quiet, I’ll finish the song like this.” Then he walked out in front of the mic, strummed the now unplugged guitar and belted out the rest of the song. The audience was so quiet, and Glen sounded so good.

They covered The Pixies’ “Cactus” and played something else I can’t recall before thanking us and walking off stage.

Glen came back out and kicked off the encore with “I Want My Life To Make More Sense” during which he had the audience mimicking the violin part that accompanies the song when performed by The Frames. Quite nice.

So then he says that when they got to L.A., Damien Rice called and said he also happened to be in town and would be at the show. “And if he’s up for it, I’d like to ask Damien to come out and play a song.” Damien Rice came out from back stage with a bit of a swagger, doing a good impression of Keith Richards sans cigarette. There was a time when I would have been more excited about him coming out to play, but now, not so much. He played “Elephant” and swaggered back off stage.

Glen and Marketa did a great cover of Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” and then closed with “Star, Star”. No Dylan cover for us.

Now for the more trivial events of the evening: When the show started, I left my friend and his seven-months-pregnant wife to sit in their chairs while I tried to find a closer place to watch. I ended up about twenty or thirty feet from the stage, on top of a step, so I had a clear view of everything. I couldn’t have asked for a better spot. When I got there, I immediately heard someone say my name. I turned to my right and saw my former roommate’s girlfriend. Quite a coincidence, and not the first time I’ve seen a roommate’s girlfriend at a concert.

On my way out, I noticed some people standing around aiming their cameras at someone or something to my left. I looked, but didn’t see anything picture-worthy. There was some girl and a guy, but they didn’t look like anything special. I kept going and found myself walking next to the girl. The digital cameras were following us, but I still couldn’t figure out what was going on. When the guys with the professional cameras ran out in front of us and started snapping away at the girl and the guy, I decided to back off and let them have the spotlight to themselves. Apparently it was Claire Danes. I’ve always wondered if I would recognize a movie star if I ever saw one on the streets. Guess not.

Do you get mistaken for Moby all the time?

Mmhmm.

A-are you Moby?

Ha. Nope.

Aww, I was about to bust out a pen and paper.