The Swell Season is made up of Glen Hansard, the lead singer of one of my favorite bands, The Frames, and Marketa Irglova. This show was recorded last November at the Good Shepard Center in Seattle, which used to be a “home for wayward girls,” and is now a small concert venue. I’ve been looking forward to the release of this DVD for months, hoping, I suppose, to relive the brilliance that is a Swell Season concert.

The concert begins with "Say It To Me Now," a Frames song that often opens Swell Season concerts. I’ve always loved this song, especially the way it starts out slowly and then gradually gets louder as Glen’s guitar playing gets more forceful. It doesn’t disappoint here. Then comes "Lay Me Down," another Frames song; before he begins, Glen tells a very funny story about buying a cemetery plot for his girlfriend when he was a teenager.

The DVD includes many of the excellent songs from both Glen and Marketa’s record, as well as from Once, the movie they starred in. I particularly like "All the Way Down," which is a song Glen sings in the movie and on the soundtrack, but Marketa sings live. Another one of my favorites is "Drown Out," a song that is not in Once but is on the Swell Season album. Before this song, Glen tells a story about a woman he knows who is a ghost hunter. Glen definitely has a gift for story telling; he is both charming and funny, and knows exactly when to pause for comedic effect. This story is included in the DVD extras.

This concert also includes two unreleased songs: "Concentric" and "Golden." The latter is a song that Glen plays by himself, and says is about how people older than 50 and younger than 12 seem to know what life is all about, while those of us in the middle are struggling to figure out who we are. "Concentric" is perhaps my favorite song on the whole DVD, and I think that it showcases Marketa’s piano playing really well. I also have to mention how well Marketa and Glen’s voices sound together. I think that’s particularly evident on this song and on "Falling Slowly."

On this DVD, as on their U.S. tour last fall, Glen and Marketa are joined by Colm Mac Con Iomaire and Joe Doyle, two members of The Frames, on violin and bass. Colm lends one of the best moments of the DVD; during the last song, "Star Star," he plays a few lines of "Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. As the song ends, Glen encourages the audience to whistle along while the music stops. Then he goes to sit at the piano with Marketa for a few moments, before they all leave the stage while the audience keeps whistling. A great end to a very good concert.

I wrote that I was looking for a way to relive a Swell Season concert and this DVD delivers in that regard. If you like the Swell Season’s music, you will enjoy watching this for the solid versions of all the songs. My one complaint is that it feels a bit incomplete. I’m left wondering if there are songs that didn’t make it onto the DVD, or if the concert itself was short due to the fact that it was recorded for a television program.