17 December 2012 // Dublin, IE // Vicar Street

Support Act: Seti the First

Main Set: You Will Become, Talking with The Wolves*, Philander, Love Don’t Leave Me Waiting – Respect (Aretha Franklin), Low Rising, When Your Mind’s Made Up, Bird of Sorrow, Leave**, Lay Me Down** – Have Yourself a Spooky Little Christmas**, Astral Weeks** (Van Morrison) – Smile** (Pearl Jam), High Hope, Moving On – Maybellene (Chuck Berry), Santa Maria, God Bless Mom, Stars are Underground, Star Star – Hotellounge (dEUS) – Most Beautiful Widow in Town (Sparklehorse), Fake (snippet), Song of Good Hope***

Encore: Bananaman, This Gift****, Blue Moon (snippet), Wishlist (Pearl Jam), Don’t Do It***** (Marvin Gaye/The Band), Falling Slowly, Fitzcarraldo, Car Pound****** (Mundy), Forever Young******* (Bob Dylan), Passing Through (Leonard Cohen), The Auld Triangle (Traditional)

*Simon on shaker

**Glen solo

***Glen and Colm and strings

****Amy Hansard sharing vocals

*****Simon on guitar

******Mundy on lead vocals

*******Liam O’Maonlai sharing vocals

[Thanks to Fleur for the setlist and notes.]

Notes: The night started off in a fairly straight-forward manner with the first 4 tunes dished up from R&R as usual. I knew, however, that it was going to be a different night when they stopped after LDLMW for a joke interlude from Colm – I won’t repeat the joke but suffice to say it was a tongue in cheek poke at the Germans and their directness (in comparison to that of the Irish who like to talk around things and make them sound not as bad as they possibly are!). After ‘Bird of Sorrow’ a lone voice piped up from the crowd stating that Glen was putting in a performance that was “better than expected” – Glen responded to that back-handed compliment by commenting with a wry smile that it great to be home. The “grave'” story preceded ‘Lay Me Down’ with Glen noting his 16 year old self to have been “as intense as fuck”. There was a good ol singalong which was great to hear. ‘High Hope’ was dedicated to all at Holy Spirit in Ballymun and was met with a chorus of “G’wan the ‘Mun” from various pockets of the crowd. Afterwards a woman shouts to Glen “We love you long time” and Glen then feigns a foreign accent and suggests the woman in question be given “five dolla”. ‘Santa Maria’ was great tonight – easily the best from the last three gigs. Colm sounded fantastic – his soaring solo just takes that tune from something good to something great. Glen’s performance during that tune also garnered some attention from an avid male fan who felt the need to yell out “Jeysus Glen you are sexy!” – alrighty then!

Glen explains his songwriting process behind ‘Song of Good Hope’ describing it as one that just ‘fell out’ rather then being something created using his frontal lobe – he then gives ‘Fake’ as an example of the latter kind of songwriting and does a few lines to cheers from the crowd all the while inferring that SOGH is far superior in terms of a song. It is dedicated to Ezra, John and Katherine Kelly. Colm and the string section provide a gorgeous background to Glen’s delicate strumming on The Horse. After the encore break Glen says he is going to bring his niece Amy on to help him with the next tune. He comments that he first wrote a song Amy (and her sister) liked many years ago and we get an impromptu ‘Bananaman’ with full participation from the crowd with “Eeeeeeeeverybody likes bananas”. Amy then comes on to duet with her Uncle on ‘This Gift’ – it’s a home town treat!

There is a slight delay after ‘This Gift’ where Glen does a bit of ‘Blue Moon’ before being handed an electric guitar and launching into the biggest surprise of the night – a cover of Pearl Jam’s ‘Wishlist’. As an 18+ year member of the PJ fanclub and (quite clearly) a HUGE Glen fan I am beyond stoked to hear this. I suspect few people in the audience know the words or the tune – do I care? NOT ONE BIT!! Most impressive is Glen nailing the lyrics – it is a very wordy song and
getting the words right is a feat which Ed the Ved himself struggles with (I don’t think I have ever heard him do a version without buggering it up!). I am a very, very happy camper at this stage!!!

After ‘Fitzcarraldo’, Glen invites Mundy onstage for a tune. It is completely unrehearsed and the rest of the band (including the brass and string sections) are given chords and told to give it a go. It sounds pretty darn good in the end! Glen delights the crowd with a sweet verision of Mic Christopher’s ‘Heyday’ (which has an excellent singalong) and then invites Liam O’ Maonlai from the Benzini Brothers (who were the kings of busking in Dublin when Glen, Mic, Mundy and others started) and he gives a prayer in Gaelic before launching into ‘Forever Young’. The night ends with ‘Passing Through’ where Glen and the full band make their way into the crowd with instruments to busk Vicar St style. The end of that tune is met with a “one more song” chant and Glen and his cohorts oblige with ‘The Auld Triangle’ with various people (including Glen, Mundy, Liam & Fiacre) taking a verse. The band leaves the floor and I check my watch – 3 hours and 10 minutes of awesomeness have passed and I think to myself about what Glen is going to have to do to top it tomorrow night – it’s going to have to be spectacular to beat that!!!!

Band: Glen Hansard, Colm Mac Con Iomaire (violin), Joe Doyle (bass), Rob Bochnik (guitar), Graham Hopkins (drums), Justin Carroll (keys)

Brass: Curtis Fowlkes, Michael Buckley, Ronan Dooney

Strings: Una, Paula, and Katie

Reviews:
Irishtimes.com
netsonora zine, with photos (in Spanish)

Photos: