This has been a great weekend for me and Irish music. The first event was a concert last night that D'Arcy invited me to at The Depot with Swell Season, who won the Oscar for best song for 2007 and stared in the Sundance Film Festival movie Once.
This concert was amazing! I have never been able to experience such passionate art that up close. These people are the real deal: Glen Hansard, the main singer, quit school at 13 to play music on the streets of Dublin. He's got this ratty guitar, a ton of passion, and a very approachable style. He did a great job of working the crowd. (Thanks, D'Arcy, for the photo!)
The opening act was even so cool with this total hippie Irish guy by himself who sang and sometimes beat the drums or played the penny flute while the audience provided a drone. Just a great, real experience. You can also check out what D'Arcy and Stina had to say about it on their blogs (we ran into Christina and Dave after the concert--it was definitely the place to be on a Friday night if you are into cool Irish music stuff).
And speaking of Irish music, tonight Kevin and I got to see the much-anticipated U2 laser show at the Clark Planetarium. This is a show that takes me and Kevin back a ways, as we used to go to the laser U2 show at the old Hansen Planetarium back when we were kids. We hadn't lost our touch, and were able to get our traditional back-row seats, which, just so you know, are always the best seats in a dome planetarium theater.
This show was great. Laser technology and imaging has come a long way in the last decade, and the screens were multi-dimensional and cinematic. The songs didn't vary from the usual U2 lineup: Where the Streets Have No Name, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Pride, With or Without You, Bullet in the Blue Sky, The Fly, Mysterious Ways, I Will Follow, Desire, Beautiful Day, Elevation, and Vertigo. As a lover of U2's music, I would have loved to hear something that's not commonly played on the radio, but these were all good song choices. I give them props for making me sufficiently affected during "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Bullet in the Blue Sky" with their imagery and symbolism of warfare, as it takes a lot to shake me out of the comfort zone of these songs I've heard over and over. Even though "I Will Follow" isn't on my list of top 20 U2 songs, I loved the abstract dance of lasers on the globe-shaped canvas on this one. I also love "Elevation," but suggest they ditch the winged dolphin featured throughout the song flying in and out of canyons for something less awkward. Overall, very much improved from what the show used to be, and very well done.
6 comments:
Fun weekend! Is this a different U2 laser show than the one you went to see at Jordon Commons a few months ago? Dave dragged me to a Pink Floyd laser show at the Hansen Planetarium years ago and I was so freaked out I haven't been back to see another laser show since. :)
Yes! This is a standing laser show that the planetarium has put together to a bunch of U2 songs, but the one we saw in February (U2-3D) was a Sundance Film Festival film where they applied 3D technology to one of the Vertigo concerts (Buenos Aires).
This show had lots in it to make a person dizzy. I'm not sure how it would fare on someone who is expecting baby, so if you had trouble last time, it might now work for you this time either. :(
Awesome weekend! You're probably still speaking with an accent eh? That's one thing, as soon as I set foot in Ireland to live for awhile (in the old inhabited Castle in Ireland, by the way) I found myself gaining a new accent. "Do ya wanna cuppa?" I still say that to people to see if they want tea, no one knows what I am talking about.
U2 are truly Rock Gods! Michelle was flight attendant to The Edge and she didn't even know who he was!!!! Lucky.
I sent the Swell Season a message on MySpace, and one of the crew responded, it was sweet!
note--supposed to say "oldest inhabited castle..." much cooler.
Oh baby, I'm envious! I loved Once...and I bet the concert was GREAT! You make me want to keep an eye out for some live Irish music soon. Thanks for posting the video!
I loved the old U2 laser show at the Hansen Planetarium. Are the laser effects even similar? I'm not much of a U2 fan in general, but sometimes, their music really has a way of sucking you into it. I'm looking forward to arial canyon dolphins!
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