Luck o' The Irish?

Last night Rebecca and I had the pleasure of sitting in the creaky pews among the ghosts of Nashville-past at the Ryman Auditorium, country music’s mother church. I had purchased some scalped tickets online for the show, so there was anxiety built around how the situation might play out. It turns out that the tickets were legit and we had the entire row to ourselves. The setting was perfect to celebrate the memory of one of our more romantic and memorable dates of 2007. Last year Rebecca and I had gone to the great little art house theatre, the Belcourt (anytime you can drink a draft beer or glass of wine and watch a movie I’m all for it) to catch the modern musical, “Once.” The songs from the movie were haunting and stayed with us for the past year. The Irish couple that had made this little indie movie went on to win a surprising Oscar for Best Original Song and have sold out shows all over the U.S. As we eagerly waited for the Swell Season to begin, we had to sit through a fairly painful set of tunes from the opener. To his credit, I think he would be an enjoyable listen on a sunny Saturday morning while cleaning the house, but for the most part it was a real snoozefest. If anything, I felt for the drummer who looked like he was just told that he was going on tour with a "real star" and he played with the same emphasis that he would had he found out that the star was The Boss or Tom Petty. He was really a distraction as the stoic singer barely moved an inch. This all was quickly forgotten as I heard the first few notes of "Falling Slowly." The simple piano riff and sweeping harmonies blanketed us in warm perfection. Song after song the duo of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova pulled you into their world of passion, heartache and quirky Irish anecdotes. The latter was probably the most charming thing of the evening. The entire band seemed truly honored to be playing for the crowd and told several stories to show their appreciation. The story that stuck with me the most was that he admitted that he had spent 18 years dreaming of how to go down this path (presumedly success with music) and he kept running into the same wall over and over. He mentioned that sometimes you need to turn away from your path and wall and begin walking in a seemingly completely different path. In his scenario he said we often end up walking all the way around the world until one day we realize we are walking on the other side of that wall and we've come full circle never realizing that we've achieved what we originally had set out for. Its simple, but its simplicity made a lot of sense.