A Collection of videos from The Swell Season's concert in Vancouver Nov 25, 2009

Here is Marketa singing "If You Want Me"



Here is a link to the Georgia Straight's photos and video of the conert:

http://www.straight.com/article-272755/vancouver/photos-video-swell-season-centre-performing-arts-vancouver

The video they have is Glen and Mar singing Lies

Next is him sining Low Rising off their new album Strict Joy:


Check out my review of the concert: http://pop-goes-the-world.blogspot.com/2009/11/swell-season-best-concert-ive-ever-been.html for a video of them singing When Your Mind's Made Up.

Here was their set list for the concert:
Setlist
01. Fallen From The Sky
02. Lies
03. Low Rising
04. In These Arms
05. The Rain
06. The Moon
07. If You Want Me
08. Fantasy Man
09. Say It to Me Now
10. Leave
11. Backbroke
12. Astralweeks
13. Colm
14. I Have Loved You Wrong
15. Once
16. When Your Mind's Made Up

Encore 01
17. Falling Slowly
18. "New Song"
19. High Horses
20. Red Chord

Encore 02
20. "Irish Song"

The Swell Season -The Best Concert I've EVER been to

First off, I need to quantify this statement in my headline. I've only been to five concerts so far in my life, The Swell Season being the fifth one.

My first ever concert was in 1987 and it was a Debbie Gibson concert. Before anyone snickers, remember, it was 1987 and she was very popular at the time and I was in the right age bracket (12 years old) to be a fan. So no mocking me.

My next concert was 10 years later in 1997 when Celine Dion came into town. Yes, I know a lot of people aren't fans of hers -they find her music cheesy but I actually still like her to this day. I think her music is great.

It only took 5 years till I went to my next concert and that was in Casino Regina and I saw Chantal Kreviazuk. It was an okay concert but I didn't enjoy it very well because I only knew very few of her songs and she wasn't that strong singing live.

Last year was concert #4 and it was Neil Diamond -a friend took me to cheer me up as I was having a rough time.

Now, I not a big fan of Neil Diamond and it was really nice of my friend to take me but again, like Chantal Kreviazuk it was hard to enjoy the show not knowing any of his songs except one and that was Sweet Caroline which he didn't get to until the encore.

And I really think that is the reason why I don't go to many concerts and that is the lack of knowing a musician/band's entire discography.

But that wasn't the case with the Swell Season. I became familiar with the duo of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova because of the film Once. A beautiful film about an Irish busker who meets a Czech immigrant in Dublin and the make beautiful music together.

So when I saw that they were coming to Vancouver and playing at The Center, I immediately snapped up tickets.

The opening act was the singer from a band called Doveman -he wasn't that great. All his songs sounded the same -very depressing. The only highlight was when he turned upbeat songs from Footloose into mournful versions.

When The Swell Season finally hit the stage, last night Glen, coming out with a Rastafarian style toque, and Marketa sat down on the stage with the mic lowered onto his famous guitar with the hole and also pointed at a mini Casio keyboard to play Fallen from the Sky -one of my favorite songs from Once. It was great start to the concert -such an upbeat song to get the crowd started.

Glen then shedded the toque and Marketa took her place behind a grand piano to play Lies -also from Once.

Eventually, Glen and Mar were joined by their band, The Frames (Glen's other band) to perform a few songs from their new album Strict Joy and one from their first album called The Swell Season. Highlights were Low Rising and The Rain.

When Marketa took the stage to sing lead, she started off singing If you Want Me -one of my favourite songs of all time. It was a great arrangement having the full band behind her. She then sang a new song off Strict Joy called Fantasy Man, which was just great.

After, Glen took the stage alone, sat down and sang a raw version of Say it to me Now -the song that opens Once. He did it with no mic in front of him. It was very powerful.

He then sang Leave, another raw performance.

The violinist of the band also played a solo, showing off a traditional Irish tune that is off his album.

One of the higlights of course was during the first encore when Glen and Mar sang their Oscar-winning song Falling Slowly -it is just as lovely hearing it live as hearing it on my iPod.

The crowd wanted them to sing the Broken-Hearted Hoover Fixer Upper guy but they didn't. Instead we were treated to two more songs such as High Horses and a second encore of an Irish tune called Parting Glasses -a very fitting end.

The concert was just great. Glen and Mar were engaging with the audience, the music was awesome, the crowd appreciative of what we were seeing on stage. The crowd to was quite talented when Glen asked us to join in and sing harmony on a couple of songs.

If The Swell Season ever come again to Vancouver, I will be sure to get tickets.

Here is video someone took of the Swell Season singing When You Mind's Made Up

New Moon Rises to fan expectations

If anyone that reads this blog knows (and I hope there are readers), they will know that I am both a Potterhead and a TwiHard. But I am more of a Potterhead than a TwiHard even though I sometimes flip allegiances pretty quickly depending on where the momentum is swinging at the moment.

So right now I am a strong TwiHard as The Twilight Saga: New Moon just opened and I saw it tonight.

How does it stack up against Twilight? I actually think New Moon is a better movie than Twilight.

There was something about New Moon that felt very cinematic with its wide scenery shots to the special effects down to Alexandre Desplat's very movie-like score.

I credit that to director Chris Weitz who knows a thing or two about directing a fantasy picture. (He directed The Golden Compass -while a great film to look at, I didn't get the film).

Not dissing Catherine Hardwicke or anything with what she did with Twilight but they are two different directors. Twilight felt more intimate while New Moon felt grand.

Twilight of course sets up the love story between vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and human teen Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart). New Moon we get to see their romance in full swing (at least in the first few minutes of the movie) but we also get their breakup after an unfortunate incident at Bella's 18th birthday party involving a paper cut.

So Edward and co. leave and Bella is heartbroken. I did love what screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg did with the passage of time between the break-up and when Bella starts to come out of her "coma."

I have to say that Rosenberg was pretty faithful to the book but she did move some scenes up and cut out some scenes but I was okay with it. When I watched the movie nothing screamed out at me saying "Why did you do it that way?" or "Why did you cut that out" unlike in Twilight where I didn't like some of the choices.

Anyways, Bella is slowly coaxed back to life by childhood friend turned best friend Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) who wants to be more than friends with Bella. Of course Jacob turns out to be part of a vampire-killing werewolf pack, which makes for an interesting love triangle for the third and fourth movies.

Bella realizes that she can see Edward if she puts herself in danger and throughout the movie we see her doing just that.

I thought that Rosenberg also did a great job of keeping Edward still in the movie even though he is just a voice in Bella's head in the book. I liked the visions better. The special effects for the werewolves were good and the stuff in Volterra were great and Michael Sheen as Aro and Dakota Fanning as Jane were quite menancing as the Volturi.

I want to pause for a second for a moment of silence for Rachelle Lafevere's Victoria. May her portrayal of Victoria RIP. While Lafevere had no lines in the film, I did enjoy her rocking some major action stuff. Let's hope Bryce Dallas Howard makes for a good Victoria.

The acting was definitely better than the first one but Stewart still cannot yell or look like she is having a nightmare to save her life -it was still laughable to me. Also laughable is the amount of screaming that went on everytime Lautner shows his abs. Yes, I will admit his body definitely looks buff and great but for the love of God he is 17 and jail bait for some of the ladies in attendance that were screaming. I prefer seeing Pattinson shirtless as he was in the Volturi scenes.

Another groaner and a scene I thought was really cheesy was where Edward and Bella were running in the forest (it happens near the end of the film) -they looked like they were doing a Banana Republic ad or something until I realized the context so when I watch that scene again when I get the DVD then I can better appreciate it.

Another thing of note was that I felt the songs in New Moon wasn't as good as the songs in Twilight. I thought the songs used for the latter movie serviced the film well while I don't think it really added anything to New Moon other than just to have it.

However, one thing stayed the same between films and that is the undeniable hot chemistry that Pattinson and Stewart have. I love Edward and Bella as I think they are one of my favourite literary couples behind Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre. So glad that they didn't lose their chemistry between films.

Overall, job well done everyone on New Moon. I really did enjoy it and I am looking forward to seeing what David Slade does with Eclipse. I am really looking forward to Eclipse as one of the things I didn't like about the novel New Moon was we didn't get to enjoy Edward and Bella as a couple. Eclipse we will definitely get more of that and I really do hope they film Breaking Dawn (the last in the Twilight series). It would be a shame to only film three but I guess we will have to wait and see how much money films 2 and 3 bring in.

By the way, was there a preview clip for Eclipse after New Moon's credits? I stayed till the end and they showed the title card for Eclipse and we thought they were going to show something but then the film got cut off before we could find out. Anyone care to shed some light on this?