[capeAngedlelp]

Saw them last month. I highly suggest catching them if you can! Here's a video I took. Completely unplugged, not even a PA.

[jakitula]

I love when Glen sings "Say it to Me Now" like that!

I saw them last month in Raleigh (and I embarrassed myself by asking Glen to pose for a pic with a toy I'd made). I took some videos that I haven't even looked through yet, so I don't know if they even came out okay... But my girlfriend's videos are up, including Mar's new song "Crossroad":



I'll be seeing them again in Brooklyn next month! I will never tire of The Swell Season

[capeAngedlelp]

^ I would love to go to that free show!

[CedssypeEdids]

^^Wow, didn't know about a new Marketa song (or that she's cut her hair either)!!! Thanks for sharing!!

I agree, I never get tired of seeing them live. I've already seen them 8 times and I'm gonna see them again in London at the end of the year.

I filmed this in Barcelona early this year, What Happens When the Heart Just Stops, amazing!!

[jakitula]

^^Wow, didn't know about a new Marketa song (or that she's cut her hair either)!!! Thanks for sharing!!

Yes, her haircut was a surprise to me as well! Apparently she'd just done it a few days prior to that show to donate to oil spill relief.

[Wheldcobchoto]

i want to see them live so badly. I adore their live DVD as well as the bonus live disc that came with the special edition of their last album. Gorgeous, gorgeous music.

http://www.levispioneersessions.com/

Everyone needs to hear their cover of "Young Hearts Run Free"! Speaking of free, it's a free download right up in that there link.

[CedssypeEdids]

amazing video of Glen & co singing in the streets of Barcelona before the show, so lucky to experience it!!!!

[capeAngedlelp]

I bought the DVD as a Father's Day gift for my hubby! Can't wait to watch it.

[Infiseeenvelp]

I take it Glen sings songs from The Frames stuff as well as the Swell Season songs under the banner of The Swell Season? I'm totally out of the loop with those guys.

There seems to be major crossover in the songs performed by both.

[capeAngedlelp]

^ you are correct!

[Infiseeenvelp]

I know the Frames are playing this summer to celebrate 20years playing together (scary thought right there)

[jakitula]

I know the Frames are playing this summer to celebrate 20years playing together (scary thought right there)

There is also talk of an anniversary Frames box set of some sort!

[capeAngedlelp]

Awful news.


Man Dives onto Stage in Suicide at Thursday's Swell Season Concert

A man jumped from a roof onto the stage at the Swell Season concert at Mountain Winery in Saratoga tonight in an apparent suicide, according to news reports and witnesses.

Several witnesses say that the man climbed up onto the roof, then sprinted and stumbled to the top before jumping off. He fell approximately three stories, through lighting rigging, then landed on a speaker on the stage less than three feet from Swell Season vocalist/songwriter Glen Hansard, witnesses tell All Shook down in e-mails.

Update, 12:40 a.m.: The San Jose Mercury News is reporting that the man who jumped is dead.

Update, 12:32 a.m.: A witness says they were standing right next to the man before he jumped, and describes him as appearing in his mid-to-late twenties with dark hair.

"He stood alone and he seemed melancholy and removed from the show ... but not necessarily distraught," the witness writes. "We made eye contact and smiled at each other and shortly after, I noticed he had left."

"Almost immediately, I noticed a figure climbing onto the roof. He pulled himself up on the roof and starting sprinting towards the edge. It's quite a distance and he lost his footing more than once. He kept getting up, determined to follow through."

Several witnesses tell All Shook Down that the man was lying totally still on the stage after the fall and that paramedics abandoned CPR. A few witnesses report seeing blood around the man.

Here are some of the reports we've received from witnesses:

At first, we thought it was a dummy (prank of sort)or part of the lighting, but after seeing the horrible shock on Glenn's face, we realized it was something very serious. He came out of nowhere. The staff acted quickly and tried to resuscitate the man, but to no avail. What a horrible end to a wonderful evening. There were some very young kids behind us enjoying the concert with their parents. I hope this was not too traumatizing for them.


Writes another witness:

Glen was just finishing a little song that one of his band members had made up. The crowd was singing along with him and he was looking for the band member as we finished singing along. I just happened to look up and I saw this guy falling from the top of the roof on the right side of the building behind the stage. He landed about 3 feet to the left of Glen on a speaker and he was motionless, like a rag doll. It was about 10pm. At first there was a split moment where everyone was like, what is going on and then people started to scramble to help. They did CPR. The show stopped immediately. The crowd was in shock, but pretty cooperative exiting the venue.


And another witness:

I saw him fall from what appeared to be the lighting rigging, which is why I thought it was a light at first. He fell about three stories, if he did in fact jump off [the] roof. It was about 10pm. The band was between songs with most of them off stage. Lead singer [Glen Hansard] had just led crowd in a sort-of sing-along. Crowd seemed stunned at first, like me. Then you could hear some people sobbing. He fell on the front right of stage as you look at it from [the] audience. They performed CPR.

[Poeetiol]

jesus. poor everybody.

[aparneioninny]

holy. shit.

I cant even imagine.

[HBPujWBe]

.

[capeAngedlelp]

More bad news:

In what amounts to a very crappy week for The Swell Season, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova have all but confirmed that their Oscar winning partnership is over. Hansard’s old band, The Frames, have already announced new tour dates and he recently told Spinner.com that “getting together and making music with Mar was a side thing for me, but it felt absolutely right. He says he’s planning a return to The Frames and that The Swell Season “will eventually naturally end,” adding, “the thing I’ve learned with this band is that when you’re political and careerist about it, it doesn’t work – it just shines less.”

The news comes at a bad time for the Irish folk-rock duo, as last week saw San Jose, Calif. resident Michael Pickels commit suicide by jumping from the top of a building on to the stage during a concert at the Saratoga Winery. Hansard says the breakup has nothing to do with the tragedy, and while Irglova hasn’t officially commented on the news, he predicts that his songwriting partner (and one time lover) will go on to make a record of her own at some point in time. She’s been playing a new song titled “Crossroads” on tour, and Hansard thinks the piano driven ballad may be on her solo effort. “It’s amazing,” he said of the tune, “I think she’s an incredible songwriter and I think she could make a really beautiful record.”

Check out “Crossroads” below and catch Hansard in action with The Frames on one of their upcoming dates. If you want to catch the few remaining Swell Season shows, you’ll have to catch a plane and see them at one of the following international stops. Tickets are available through the band’s website. http://consequenceofsound.net/2010/0...call-it-quits/

Cries forever.

I'm so happy to have seen them and discovered their music when I did. It means so much to my husband and I!

[jakitula]

Aww. This article has a lot of the same info and quotes, but ends a little more on a hopeful note.

It seems, considering the aforementioned plans, that a hiatus may be in store for Hansard and Irglova as a musical duo, but things haven't run their course just yet.

"The Swell Season will continue to do things. I just don't know whether it's ... I don't know in what context we'll do it," Hansard says. "The thing that this band has proven to me is that when you're political, it doesn't work. When you're careerist about it, it doesn't [work]. It just shines less." This makes me a little bummed that I missed their Brooklyn show last month, probably their last NYC show ever. (I was very ill and couldn't make it.)

But I have tickets for The Frames in November, and I have to admit that I loved them first and I'm happy that they're back and touring. I love Mar, too, and I'll follow her no matter what she does.

ETA: Glen's latest tweet:

If anyone is going to announce the end of The Swell Season it'll be us.. Forget what anyone else says.. Were not breaking up.. http://twitter.com/Glen_Hansard/status/22021382248

[capeAngedlelp]

Glen's twitter:

Glen_Hansard

If anyone is going to announce the end of The Swell Season it'll be us.. Forget what anyone else says.. Were not breaking up..

about 2 hours ago via Echofon

[jakitula]

Interesting interview with Colm. He gets a little cryptic at the end there. And I love his quote about "loud dirty rock music."

Colm Mac Con Iomaire has never held his best buddy's Oscar. Nor has he even seen it. But before anybody falls under the assumption that Glen Hansard keeps his very own gold statuette locked away in a guarded safe, you should know that there's a more reasonable explanation as to why some of his band mates might never have set eyes on the thing: his ma has it.

Oh well. Maybe one day, the Irish violinist will pay her a visit and see what the fuss is all about. Until then, we've more important matters to discuss. Like The Frames' first official gig in three years, at next month's Electric Picnic. Or the fact that it's now 20 years since the band first got their groove on and began recording debut album Another Love Song. Six records later, a little project called The Swell Season kind of got in the way of things, but as Colm explains from his home studio in County Wexford, it's finally time to start playing some "loud dirty rock music again". Yippee.

"It's kind of been a parallel universe that we've morphed into, you know, just flying under a different flag for the intervening time," he tells me, discussing he and the rest of the gang's involvement in Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova's The Swell Season. Indeed, what started out as a duo soon transformed into another band -- albeit one featuring all five members of The Frames.

For a while there, the stars of John Carney's runaway indie hit Once (the low-budget Irish movie that led to Glen and Marketa's 2008 Academy Award Win for Best Original Song) were romantically involved, too -- a fact that could very well have led to the rest of the band wondering if they were about to experience their very own Yoko Ono moment.

"We've been together a long time," says Colm. "I think to have any future or have any kind of stake in a band, everybody needs to be a volunteer as opposed to a conscript. I think Glen had been kind of pretty miserable and unhappy in The Frames for the preceding year or two before he did The Swell Season thing anyway -- he needed to go off and get his solo project out of his system and it just happened to grow legs with the Oscar win and everything so, I mean, at the time it was a case of 'okay, so this is just for a few months' and then the whole Hollywood thing took over so, here we are, three years later, kind of going, 'oh, well that was a strange trip!'"

I see. Is it not a little unusual that it took a departure from his usual surroundings for Glen to achieve the kind of international recognition that he would have once (sorry) only dreamed of?

"Sure, there's definitely huge irony there," says Colm, "but hand on heart, after 20 years having success and good times, or bad times, with The Frames, I think everybody just felt joyous for Glen.

"We'll do a tour in November in Europe and America as The Frames," he continues, "and I think, after that, it'll be clear -- pretty clear -- what the next step is as regards either go into the studio, you know, make another record, or say 'good luck, see yas lads, it's been great, thanks for the memories.'"

Hmm, so what he's saying is that the next few months will be a test to see if there is still life left in the band?

"Well, it's not so much that it's a test," he replies, "but I think it will be pretty clear, you know, we're all looking forward to it, but I don't think any of us have any illusions as regards . . . I don't think we're all kind of going 'oh, this has to work', or anything like that." http://www.herald.ie/entertainment/m...l-2309275.html