The Frames 04-06-07 San Diego, CA

The Frames are an Irish band (and how). They definitely have that over-the-top emotionality many Irish artist have. And it’s why I love them.

They have songs that are rockin’, like “Revelate” and “The Stars are Underground.” They have songs that are very quiet and sad, like “Dream Awake.” They have songs that are cute and fun to sing along with, like “Star Star” and “God Bless Mom.” But their masterpieces are their songs that build from quiet mellowness to loud, intense crescendos.

And all their songs are delivered with an emotional intensity you don’t find everyday.

I’ve seen them live several times before. This time through the west coast they didn’t play L.A., so I drove down to San Diego to catch them at a great little bar called the Belly Up. They’re a band that inspires die hard fans. People drove down from LA for the show. A couple behind me had driven 4 hours to be there.

They started out with songs from their new album, The Cost. They didn’t do the songs from it I most wanted to hear, but I was glad after that they didn’t. Because seeing the songs I wasn’t as interested in live made me appreciate them a lot more.

They then did a couple of older songs. “What Happens When the Heart Just Stops” is a wonderful, sad, heartbreaking song. But they ended it on an upbeat note by going into Van Morrison’s “Caravan.” It was perfect.

They did “God Bless Mom,” a cute song that the singer, Glen, has introduced before as being something he wrote with his little brother, who was a child at the time. He was babysitting him, trying to write a song, and his brother kept bothering him, so he got him to help with the song, just to occupy him. The song is a great sing-along tune, and it does get rather angry, with the line “You’ll see how hard it can be to keep your side of the deal,” repeated a lot. Everyone was singing along.

Glen wasn’t as chatty as I’ve seen him be, he’s definitely a storyteller when he performs. Even so, they didn’t make it entirely through the set list they had planned. They did a string of their more rockin’ tunes, “Finally,” “The Stars Are Underground,” “Revelate,” “Underglass” (and older one you don’t hear very often!), and “Fake.”

Then they took it down a notch and played one of their building masterpieces, “Santa Maria.” Perfect song to end on.

After the encore break, the violinist/fiddle player, Colm, came out alone and said, “Now for something completely different,” and did a solo tune. He played a riff a few times, then looped it back, and played over it. It was a haunting performance. Unfortunately, the crowd was rather chatty and people had to shush them at first. But everyone did quiet down and enjoyed the song. (After shouting out, “Spam, spam, and spam!”)

The band then joined Colm for “Lay Me Down,” a sad, moving song, that Glen ended by singing a Daniel Johnston lyric, and having us all sing it along with him. The Daniel Johnston song is called “Funeral Home,” and the lyrics are:

Funeral home, funeral home
Going to the funeral home
Got me a coffin shiny and black
I’m goin’ to the funeral and I’m never coming back

Just before the second encore break, they played one of my favorites—another building masterpiece called “Fitzcarraldo.” (It’s a song Glen wrote about a movie of the same name.) Bliss.

After the second encore break they did “Pavement Tune,” one of their rockin’ songs, and Glen had the whole audience singing along with the repeated line, “I want my life to make more sense.”

A great show by one of the best live bands performing today.