Glen Hansard – 25 June 2024 (ALMA Festival Barcelona 2024)

Irishman Glen Hansard was the second name on the Alma Festival Barcelona 2024 line-up, which opened the day before with the much-anticipated concert by Sheryl Crow. In front of a Poble Espanyol that was just over half filled, the Dubliner came to present his latest album, All that was east is west at me now (2023), and the concert began with four tracks from the album that showcased the versatility of Glen’s own voice and the power of “The feast of St. John” or “Down on your knees”, who at times seemed to follow the post-punk trend so fashionable in recent years..

Glen Hansard, Alma Festival Barcelona 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

After the overly intimate and paused “Time will be the healer“, the Irishman chose to play the first wild card of the evening with a massive karaoke of “When your mind’s made up” from his time with The Swell Season, then dedicated “There’s no mountain” to DJ Sideral and “Bird of sorrow” to Antoni Tàpies, demonstrating the quality of the five-piece band that accompanies him, both accelerating with force and adapting to the half-ballads with Mr Hansard’s intense verses.

Glen Hansard, Alma Festival Barcelona 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

After a request from a member of the audience who came on stage to play “Wedding Ring“, the concert turned into a second, powerful part, starting with “Ghost“, much more direct and raw than the album version. This was followed by the first song on the setlist from his former band The Frames, ‘Fitzcarraldo‘, which between the typical Irish rhythms with the violinist shining and the singer’s screaming chorus really became the first big hit of the night. After a little disappointment with the slightly decaffeinated ‘Bearing Witness‘, the concert would return to that state of unbridled fury with the majestic ‘Revelate‘, probably the best song of the night, the perfect combination of a band pounding their instruments with rage and Glen Hansard’s raspy voice.

Gareth Quinn, Glen Hansard’s fiddler, Alma Festival Barcelona 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

With the wind at his back, the familiar “Falling Slowly” fitted perfectly into the show’s climax, which was to be extended with the sonorous explosion of happiness that is the final minutes of “Her mercy”, a song that seems made to be played with a friend at any Irish celebration… From here, inexplicably, the concert lost momentum in leaps and bounds, with a “Two Tongues” interpreted with little success by two Glen Hansard fans to whom he himself gave the stage. “This Gift” didn’t get the power from the drums that it usually does in the various live shows we’ve seen from the man from Dublin, while the end of the concert, with only Hansard on stage performing “Carrickfergus” acoustically, was a strange end to a concert that had its best moments when the power of the guitars and vocals overcame the half-rhythms.

Glen Hansard, Alma Festival Barcelona 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

In any case, those last 10 somewhat erratic minutes cannot spoil a remarkable concert in which both Glen Hansard and the band themselves managed to elevate the songs from a discography that sounds much calmer on the studio album to a much more lively and powerful version. Special mention should be made of the songs by The Frames, which fit in perfectly with the musical proposal of the concert, as well as the sympathy and ability to lead the concert with anecdotes and explanations by Hansard himself, with whom you feel like spending an afternoon having a beer and chatting about whatever comes up…