Glen Hansard, with Aoife O’Donovan, at the State Theatre, Minneapolis (20 November 2015)

Glen Hansard Setlist

Grace Beneath the Pines Winning Streak Just to Be the One My Little Ruin When Your Mind’s Made Up (Swell Season song) Bird of Sorrow Getting Through / Stay the Road Astral Weeks (Van Morrison cover) with Pearl Jam’s “Smile” snippet Paying My Way Back Broke (Swell Season song) Love Don’t Leave Me Waiting with Nick Drake’s “Northern Sky” snippet McCormack’s Wall Lowly Deserter with Prince’s “When Doves Cry” snippet Way Back in the Way Back When High Hope This Gift — Encore — Say It to Me Now (The Frames song) Falling Slowly (Swell Season song) Didn’t He Ramble The Auld Triangle (Brendan Behan cover) with Aoife O’Donovan — Encore II — Her Mercy

Aoife O’Donovan Setlist

She played a couple of new songs, like “Hornets”, which she said she played recently when she hosted (along with Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz) at the A Prairie Home Companion show in October 2015.

After her Joni Mitchell cover song “You Turn Me On, I’m A Radio” (to be released as a B-Side on this Black Friday Record Store Day 7″ single), she is joined on stage with Thomas Brosseau, who provided piano for the rest of her 30-min set.

We’ve seen Glen Hansard before, but never quite like this. He’s joined on stage by a large ensemble (see entire cast and crew photograph below), including both a horn and wind instrument section. Familiar The Swell Season songs were suddenly shown in a new, livelier, and possibly improved, versions of these classic songs.

Hansard also added snippets of popular songs into his various songs, but my personal favorite was hearing a couple of lines from Prince’s “When Doves Cry” (“maybe I’m just like my father/maybe you’re just like my mother/she’s never satisfied“) on “Lowly Deserter”.

The band stuck to the setlist, right up until the encore, where some changes were made. They decided to play an old Frames song “Say It to Me Now” (with Glen Hansard playing in the balcony to the real Kristen’s mother from Dublin), followed by The Swell Season’s “Falling Slowly” with opener Aoife O’Donovan, who stood in for Markéta Irglová’s part.

O’Donovan stayed in for the rest of the encore, with the entire cast & crew (including guitar tech Mic) singing off-mic for Brendan Behan’s “The Auld Triangle”… making for a very satisfying ending.

However, that wasn’t the end of the show. With only three minutes left before curfew, the band made a last-minute decision to come back on stage to play “Her Mercy”. They did break the curfew by a few minutes, but it was worth it seeing Hansard singing “Mercy! Mercy!” with his hands in the air like it was some old-time religion.

Glen Hansard’s latest album Didn’t He Ramble is out now on ANTI- Records.

Remaining tour dates: