THE SWELL SEASON!!!

This past Saturday was the big night. I had been waiting for this night for a long time. This was the night of The Swell Season concert. They're new record came out this fall and when I found out they would be in the Twin Cities, I immediately began plotting the goodness. You may know The Swell Season — Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova (often times performing alongside addition members of The Frames) — from the movie Once. Several weeks a few of my friends and I watched the movie...I was introducing them to it for the first time while I myself could watch it over and over again which is saying something because I rarely watch a movie twice.

Two of my favorite people here at the Seminary joined me — Bjørnar & Mirjam Tho. Bjørnar is an exchange student from Norway and its been a blast getting to know them. We've shared many meals, late night convos, and fun times together. So we all headed downtown to meet a couple friends of mine at The Local, an Irish Pub. Glen Hansard and the Frames are all Irish so it seemed good to be in the vibe. We got some appetizers and a few pints and soaked it all in before heading to the State Theatre.

The concert itself was an outright spiritual experience. I've done big rock shows, smaller shows, local shows, intimate shows and countless performances in similar venues, but this was something total different. It felt like they were singing in our living rooms and yet we were in the 2000 seat State Theatre. Glen twice sang standing in front of the mic on the edge of the stage bellowing out heart wrenching lyrics. The instrumentation was amazing when the Frames joined in: acoustic, electric, violin, piano, drums and bass. Every song was just as beautiful and lush as the one before. It was amazing.

If you ever get the chance to see them live...do it. It'll forever change the way you think about experiencing music live. In fact you may even begin to wonder if what you experienced wasn't worship.