Considered to some people in Ireland a second U2, this indie Irish rock band was up there with Guinness in Dublin long before any of us back in the States got the news.
As honestly one of the best acts at Lolla that I witnessed, here's what the Frames did right: they performed like all they were doing was everything they love. They sang and played with what was obviously pure heart. They talked to the audience and were somewhat humorous. They let a funny looking dude in a suit who looked like he could have been off the Brady Bunch-who as far as I could tell was no one they had ever seen or met before-up on the stage to dance to one of their songs with them. And one of their dance moves looked peculiarly like a group-bow at the end of a play, except they kept doing it, raising their hands up in the air high and then leaning over and throwing their hands back down over their heads, and all to the beat of the song with the crazed fan trying to follow their lead. Now if that's not funny, I don't know what is.
Lead singer/guitarist Glen Hansard has a lot to sing and dance goofy about considering he dropped out of high school and left home with his mother's blessing when he was a boy, and took himself busking on Grafton Street and being Irish cult-group status to eventually becoming a household name in Ireland, as their fifth album, Burn the Maps, went platinum.
“This is the part of every show I love the best,” Hansard said in the middle of the band's set at the festival on Sunday. He urged everyone to repeat after him, each line of the lyrics to a song called “I want my life to make more sense to me.” At the end of the song, everyone was singing the chorus in a unison whisper, that I must admit, sounded pretty cool. Another part of the show that was memorable was the song which sounded quite a lot like the theme from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”-and which he dedicated out loud to Willy Wonka, poking fun at the recognized similarity that the chords had to the famous story-turned-movie, originally by Roald Dahl.
It didn't take long to see that The Frames have quite a loyal following. Looking up at the screen that magnified Hansard crooning his heartfelt lyrics with his eyes closed, the curly-haired redhead with freckles had more than a few fans. There was not a minute went by during the show that there wasn't an Irish flag seen up on the screen waving in the background.
At the end of these guys' set, I was a little saddened. I wanted more. Several summers ago when I went to Ireland I was constantly asked where the “craic” (or fun) was, and I really wish I would have known about The Frames back then, because they surely brought it to Lollapalooza. But at least now I can look forward to getting a copy of their new album, coming out September 1st, still yet to be titled.
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