Fri 23 May 2003
for some time Stocki has been waxing
lyrical about The Frames being the best live band in Ireland...now it is
on record...
THE FRAMES – SET LIST
After the mellower strains of their
last studio album For The Birds, The Frames are back with the crunching
confident swaggering riff of the opening Revelate from a album recorded
live at Vicar Street in Dublin. The Frames gave up playing the songs that
sell albums along time ago. Now they see the recording studio and the stage
as different arenas to use different gifts and pull off different effects.
How many times have you heard that a band sounds better live? Well it depends
on what Frames you are talking about but either way this is one of those
few albums that achieve the buzz and adrenaline rush of the actual live
event.
Lead singer Glen Hansard plays an
audience like few others can. There is intensity of belief, hope of better
days, mystical reaching, the thrill of love chased, the joy of love found
and the tenderest ache of love lost. There is a clash of laughter and tears
that few loud rock bands want to attempt never mind achieve. There is a
man and his band trying to squeeze the last bit of excitement that rock
can give and we are all one in camaraderie and rock n roll communion. Hansard
simply does it all to the nth degree and are we so glad.
The place of the audience in The
Frames scheme of things is a crucial one and Set List gives them that place.
They are more of a Dublin Community Gospel Choir as they sing along from
the very first word, go solo in Star, Star and have their own part on Rent
Day Blues as they sing Kool and The Gang’s "celebrate good times come on!".
It is hard to imagine how the band rehearsed the new song The Blood without
them, they are so crucial to its delivery. They also bring the reverential
hush for moments of intimacy as on What Happens When The Heart Just Stops.
The eclecticness of the band is given
panorama here too. There are the fiddles, harmonicas and banjos on Rent
Day Blues that hark back to their early days when they were described as
"raggle taggle with balls"! There is the full on shake the walls adrenalin
filled songs like Pavement Tune and the hushed ambience of the tracks from
For The Birds that rise to beautiful crescendos. What Happens When The
Heart Just Stops does what it says in the title. You feel like warning
your heart of the dangers of listening. It is almost impossible to imagine
someone achieving this kind of tender heartbreak in the midst of everything
else that has been going on. The party atmosphere and sing along celebration
is set on the bar for a moment while the heart and soul sweat and the body
takes a rest.
Never underestimate the power of
wisdom under girding these songs. Hansard is not an empty headed hedonist
simply whipping up a crowd. He throws out an immense amount of advice and
observation on human experience. As he says in the blistering Pavement
Tune "I want my life to make more sense/I want my life to make amends/I
want my life to make more sense to me." That is why Hansard is up there.
Untangling life’s joys and heartaches, successes and disappointments and
having a darn good time doing it. The adding of Marley’s Redemption Song
to Your Face is well placed. For as long as he untangles it I want to be
right there in the heart of the fellowship. If you own one live album…
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