I Was Going To Title This Review Something Involving "Irish Eyes," But Then I Realized How Stupid That Would Be...I Guess I Did It Anyhow.

Already, this was shaping up to be possibly even cooler than their last Vancouver stop. Singer/guitarist Glen Hansard proved again his penchant for storytelling, engaging the audience between songs with hilarious, rambling tales, that made it feel like we were all sitting around the fireplace at home listening to Uncle Bob's weird "on the way to the supermarket" jokes. Hansard laughs himself the whole time while saying this stuff, stumbles over words, and goes on huge tangents before finally figuring out what his point was. One related tale was about Hansard almost "purchasing" a star for his girlfriend once upon a time. Though the idea was nice, the fact that you just got a star you could name that probably wasn't visible with the naked eye didn't seem good enough. So he decided on something a little more concrete and bought burial plots. "See, darling, now we will truly be together forever!" Apparently that just didn't go over so well with the little lady. The band then launched appropriately into "Lay Me Down."

Somewhere between songs, someone mysterious in the crowd shouted out a "boo." Whether that was related to the band tuning instruments for a moment, or the band themselves, or if it was just an "ironic boo" was never determined, but it made Hansard snap his head up and scan the crowd, making a, "Yo' Mama," comment back to the heckler. Yo' Mama jokes are definitely much more amusing when uttered by someone with an Irish accent. A bit of a trend of the band not tolerating any audience disrespect carried through to a quiet acoustic moment later in the set during the darlingly-delicate song "Star Star." The music was so hushed at this point that any audience chatter back in the room carried over to the front of the stage. Between a couple soft, touching lines in the song, Hansard suddenly yelled, "Shut up!" towards the back of the room. Those crowding the stagefront got a bit of a kick out of that.

Through the entire set, they played tunes from all over their collection of songs, though 1999's Dance The Devil was particularly well-represented. The songs tonight also closely echoed last year's live album Set List, which in turn echoed 2002's live recording, Breadcrumb Trail, so perhaps technically it is their live albums that were best-represented live. Again. It plays out like a best-of show, really. "Pavement Tune," "God Bless Mom," and "What Happens When The Heart Just Stops" were all included. They also chimed in with a bunch of covers, though some of those were just snippets rolled into the middle of original tunes (I had been waiting to hear Johnny Cash's "Ring Of Fire" in the middle of "Lay Me Down," which is present on the Set List album as well as at the last show of theirs I saw, which happened to be about a week after Cash's unfortunate death. RIP The Man In Black.). Some nods to songs were "Hard Knock Life," The Pixies' "Gigantic," and Jeff Buckley's "Last Goodbye" (just a note : There is a huge resurgence in Buckley covers. I can't even recall how many times I've heard "Last Goodbye" at shows recently. And "Hallelujah," which always seems to be sung in a soaring Buckley manner, not a Leonard Cohen manner. Well.). Anytime someone breaks out the Jeff Buckley tunes, I don't know whether to float off into space with glee and rapture, or to just lose it and cry like baby. The magic of that man - and The Frames captured it well. All these songs are given a huge lift from the beautiful strings provided by Colm Mac Con Iomaire. I'm a sucker for strings, what can I say? There's times where those strings are allowed to come to the forefront, lilting and soaring and playing with the open air above the crowd.

Hansard's voice can drift into the calmest gentle whisper, along with hazy, minimalist instrumentation, lulling you into a peaceful, drink-wine-and-cuddle (or weep, depending on the song...) mode, and then spin around and roar upwards into this massive crescendo of words and yells and strings and frenzied guitars and emotion that knocks you straight backwards on your ass and makes your heart leap up into your throat and beat in such a way so as to make you become almost faint and you have no choice but to scream something in response, even if you don't know the words, or at least breathe really hard and try to keep yourself from simply exploding (breath). Clap-alongs, sing-alongs and cry-alongs were all induced by the band, and the audience complied easily. It was a lovely party. There was a brief interlude where Hansard "taught" guitarist Joseph Doyle a few notes when there was a minor fuck-up early in one song.

And surprisingly, even for an opening band, they sort of came out for an encore. A barely-there a capella version of "Hotellounge" by dEUS. The crowd, mostly attentive, was still peppered by people loudly talking and laughing somewhere in the room, and this time, an audience member piped up and yelled, "Shut up!" towards the back. Everyone laughed and Hansard nodded his approval. When they finished that, the crowd still wanted more, so as the band began to tear down the stage gear, Hansard and Doyle shared the last remaining microphone standing to sing a quiet version of "Devil Town," originally by Daniel Johnston. The pair crouched down to unplug pedals and move gear around while still singing, and while the rest of the band and crew scurried around them, amused, carting guitars and pieces of the drumkit off the stage.

Why is this band so unheard of over here, especially when they're so huge in their neck of the woods? North America will catch on soon I hope.

On to Damien Rice then. The change over was fairly involved, with small risers set up all over the place, carpets laid out, and a staggered line of tealight candles strewn across the floor in front of the microphone, which were lit moments before Rice stepped on stage (and periodically blew out). There was a crumpled pile of foil near the back of the stage, where the brick wall had been stripped of its black curtain. A couple of lights shone into this foil to create a colourful, undulating explosion of flames across the rough bricks. One of the risers soon was occupied by a cellist (Vyvienne Long), and Rice was also accompanied by female vocalist, Lisa Hannigan, who herself took over the show a few times and sang lead vocals rather than backups or harmonies. She also sings on the album (and past work), and she's so stunning, it's no wonder she was brought along for the live shows. Her voice was incredible, a huge range, sometimes soft, husky and shadowy, and sometimes loud, clear and smooth. She looked almost distressed while singing, straining her hands about her long hair and furrowing her brow. Sometimes she just sat near the back of the stage and listened, swaying to the music with closed eyes and a dreamy expression on her face.

Rice paced about the stage in slightly-disheveled clothing, acoustic guitar (most of the time) firmly affixed to him. His songs are wordy and blunt, touching on sex and drinking and way too much thinking (I swear I did not intend that to rhyme). The music became a lot more noisy and soaring than I would have anticipated from him. The vast array of pedals arranged in a neat semi-circle by the base of his microphone, which was double-headed with a distortion on the second one, attested to his inter-show fiddling-about. Really, there were a lot of strange sounds being created. Kudos to that. I was quite taken by surprise actually. I'd anticipated a much mellower show. Many songs played were taken off his recent O album, such as the disc's opener "Delicate," and the show closer "Eskimo."

Rice's fans are a somewhat insane bunch. They may look harmless (see earlier mention of university students), but they are simply ravenous for the man when he's on stage. Hooting, leaping, shouting, waving Irish flags all over the damn place... everyone was Just. So. Happy. People nearer the back, where it thinned out a bit, were sashaying around the floor in couples as though this were the ballroom dancing world championships. The bars made a mint from all the beer-swilling maniacism (which I've just discovered isn't actually a word, but it sounds right, don't you think?), and I witnessed more broken glass on that floor than I've seen in a long time. Hooligans! Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Slowly throughout the later part of the set, members of The Frames started to sneak back on stage, beginning with Mister Colm Mac Con Iomaire (I don't even know where that guy's last name officially begins, so I'll just refer to him by his full name so I don't offend anyone...) and his festive fiddling. Before too long, most of both bands were on the stage, arms about each other, sharing or swapping instruments, singing along and dancing about with giant smiles plastered across their faces. It reminded me of... "Auld Lang Syne" or something (yeah, yeah I know, it's an Irish crew, not Scottish, but it just reminded me of that sort of end-of-the-night, oh, we're all so happy, and let's all be friends, we're drunk, and it's a new year, and ohhhh, so much love! type of credo. Grab the person beside you and give 'em a big old kiss!).

It was a long set, a grand show. It looked like no one wanted to leave afterwards, and with good reason. I didn't want to leave either. So I stayed! This is a show that will be memorable for a very, very long time for me. By far one of my tops for the year so far, just because it was so extravagant and multi-faceted. The fact that the music, particularly by The Frames, is so outstanding was really just a big added bonus for the night. I mean, we were treated to an entertaining show, as well as solid musicianship? What in the world??! Way to make it a family, guys. Come back soon.

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : April 22, 2004.