Swell Season: Live @ The Lowry: 17:01:10 As an editor, photographer, critic, it’s vital for me to remain objective; to perform without fear or favour; and to dig deeply as I reveal my truth, and not another version of it. It’s the reason why I discount hype and sales volumes when listening, watching, shooting and writing. It’s the reason why I abhor the mainstream music media’s pack mentality and its increasing inability to discriminate between the good, bad and indifferent; to make heroes out of villains, based on the most scant evidence. It’s the reason why reviewing this show could be difficult for me…

My passion for music is no less than my associates’, while my historical knowledge is more limited. What this means is that I learn something new about something old everyday. Last night, for example, I watched a BBC Channel 4 Neil Sedaka documentary which revealed the turbulent career history of an artist who refused to give up, who lived for music, and who finally came back from the dead to succeed in a way he wouldn’t have thought possible. It also revealed what a truly great artist and song writer he is - how many artists today will be able to boast a 50+ year career? It was during the Swell Season show that another great emerged. The support duo asked the audience if anybody remembered Ricky Nelson and were met with blank stares before going on to play Nelson’s beautiful song ‘Lonesome Town’ - the highlight of the duo’s set. Great songs from yesterday are great songs for tomorrow. In a brilliant Shakenstir cover piece by my associate JJ, he questions the suits running Rolling Stone magazine and in so doing revisited his own musical past in the most moving and sincere way. He makes the telling point that the contemporary past does indeed influence the future, and the point is not lost on the world’s best artists.

Glen Hansard has history. It’s been a glorious but turbulent 20 years, which has taken him from Dublin’s busking streets to Hollywood and the world. It was back in ‘99 that I first heard an Irish band called the Frames when JJ gave me the band’s latest record, DANCE THE DEVIL, which was brilliant. Soon after I witnessed a live performance in a tiny club in Liverpool which I still remember in every minute detail to this very day - it was awesome. In the sparse audience were six young female Japanese tourists who I had seen earlier in a Liverpool cafe and advised them to go see the Frames if they had nothing better to do. After the show I suggested the girls had a photo taken with Hansard who was only too pleased to oblige. I used a little point and shoot belonging to one of the girls and now wonder if, ten years on, they have made the connection… Of all the acts we have covered the Frames have occupied our time the most with many fabulous live performances and albums, punctuated by several interviews.

In the closing stages of 2006 I received a self-titled album called THE SWELL SEASON which was the unintended (or intended) consequence of Hansard’s involvement with a movie soundtrack being made in the Czech Republic. The Swell Season is the marriage of the musical talents of Glen Hansard and young Czech singer/songwriter Marketa Irglova. It became our album of the year but, in common with all previous Hansard/Frames recordings, was ignored by the UK music media. Things changed dramatically when the low-budget, indie movie ONCE won an award at The Sundance Festival and went on to win the 2008 Oscar for best movie song. The film starred both Hansard and Irglova and the winning song was originally from The Swell Season’s album. After nearly twenty years of stunning records and live performances by Hansard and the Frames the UK media finally took notice - big-time. I wrote a piece reflecting the scenario called ‘Fairweather Friends’ and alluded to a Times review of the latest Frames album at the time called THE COST in which the Oscar-Winning song ‘Falling Slowly’ received the worst review I have ever read but was later hailed by the paper - after the win - a more dramatic and transparent volte-face I have yet to see in print (the paper wrote a glowing two-page Hansard feature).