Last night, as I struggled through my birthday hangover to finish my homework I overheard quite a bit of the Oscars as Marissa watched in the other room. I'd occasionally get up, frustrated by the annoying online homework system that my professor uses, to watch an acceptance speech or performance. During one of these breaks I was lucky enough to catch Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova perform their song from their movie Once. I hadn't heard anything about this movie, or much about The Frames in quite some time, so it was great to see such a great guy getting the acclaim he deserves. In his honor I'm pulling out an old myspace blog entry that I wrote about The Frames in 2006

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Thursday, March 16, 2006


In 2000 I went to go see The Gloria Record, the band that was made up of some of the dudes from Mineral, at The Middle East, in Boston. I went by myself, as I did to most shows around that time, and took my place on the back wall to watch the opening bands. Around that time the local openers in Boston at these types of shows were beyond bad, so I wasn't expecting much. The singer from TGR came out and introduced his "friend Glen Hansard, of The Frames" and urged everyone to listen closely. Just a dude with an acoustic guitar and a microphone, humbly dressed in poor fitting jeans and a blank gray t-shirt, the crowd seemed unimpressed. As he began to play the crowd seemed to grow obnoxiously loud and more engrossed in their conversations about... well, whatever the fuck it is that people at emo shows in 2000 talked about.

I could immediately tell that this guy wasn't some rich trust fund asshole from BC or BU, though. It was hard to hear over the jerks in the crowd, but it was plain to see that he was the real deal. He started with What Happens When the Heart Stops and by the time it was finished I'd made my way to the front and was up against the stage. A bit bugged by the conversations, he announced in a thick irish accent "hey, you know... i've got these songs and i came here to play them for you. it doesn't bother me if you're not interested in listening to them. but if that's the case, can you please step the fuck outside into the other room?"

Some people left, some people stayed. But it definitely got quieter. From there, in order from "For The Birds" he followed up with Headlong and then Fighting on the Stairs. I can't remember what he played after that. But I know that by the time he'd finished his set, the people that stayed were all in shocked silence during the songs, and in unified applause in between. He was egged on for an encore and was only the second of four bands playing. He never came back out. Two songs into The Gloria Record I opted to head back home before the Mass Ave (#1) bus stopped running.

I forget about The Frames from time to time but when I'm reminded of their existence I'm always reminded of that great night and throw on For The Birds and am still in awe at how great it is. Glen's playing solo in New York this weekend. I think I'm going to go. Maybe I'll even go by myself, you know, just for old time's sake.

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(I never did go to that New York show...)