Friday, May 2, 2008

The Swell Season Concert (and Jazz playoffs)...

Tracey Noonan and I had such a great time Friday night. We went to a concert with Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova. Their album, "The Swell Season" is one of my favorites. We saw them at the Sundance Film Festival last year when they had their movie there. It was a huge hit and the song, "Falling Slowly" won an Oscar. I bought tickets to their concert the second I saw that they were coming to Salt Lake City. They are from Ireland (she is actually originally from Czech Republic but lives in Dublin now), so it is a very rare opportunity to see them perform here. The concert was at The Depot at the Gateway. I hadn't ever been to there before, it was a nice venue.

Tracey and I experimented with my new camera. It is amazing to me that you can actually take pictures like this at a dark concert, without a flash! We were up on a mezzanine, not all that close to the artists. We were laughing at a guy in front of us who kept taking all of these pictures with a point-and-shoot and they were all just solid black. We could see his results, and ours...we were happy with ours! Tracey took most of the good ones (after incredible direction from me, of course). She was more brave than I was...we had to go over to a secure place and ask a security guard each time. We might look into a future with concert photography (is there such a thing?).

Glen Hansard was really funny the whole night. At one point he said that he & Marketa wanted to see what all the "who-ha" was all about in Salt Lake. They went to the temple to see it. Amazed by how beautiful it was, they tried to go in and were told they couldn't go in. He thought that was so interesting. They were told that they could go to the Visitor's Center and see pictures of the inside. They went and there was a lady that attached on to them and stayed by their side for a couple of hours. The way he told it, it was quite funny.


Someone in the audience had knitted hats for the musicians. Glen Hansard put his on (Marketa politely set hers to the side) and kept it on for the next few songs!



These pictures are our attempts at being "artistic"...Tracey's is the one above, and mine is the one below. I'll let you decide for yourself which one you like best!

After the concert was over, we went across the street to the Delta Center and saw the Jazz win their final game in the first series. It's always fun to be there when they win in the playoffs!




We really only went in to get the game-winning mints that they pass out at the end of the game (Tracey hadn't ever had one)!

We went out to a very late dinner at the Gateway after the game. We really packed it in that night, but we had such a great time (until 6:30 a.m. Saturday morning when I had to take Andrew to a lacrosse game, only then did I regret the night a bit!).

6 comments:

JEN MARX said...

I heard that band on one of those late night shows! That's so funny that they came to Salt Lake. Even funnier that someone in the audience knitted them hats! =) Oh...by the way...GO LAKERS!!!!!!!!!!! haha =)

Stacey said...

It sounds like such a fun night!

Jill, Kenny, Aiden and Capri said...

Hey, don't make fun of us point and shooters! Somtimes we can't afford the things we really want and try to make the best of it with what we have! Just kidding, I'm not really mad, just sarcastic. What kind of camera did you get? Some day I'll have a fancy pants camera too, and I'll probably make fun of point and shooters too.

Ellen James said...

Jill--

OK, I have been a point & shoot camera owner and I wasn't really making fun of him...just that NONE of his pictures were even close to working! They were totally black. The funny part was that he just kept taking them! It was hilarious. I'm so sorry if I implied that point & shoot users were not up to par with me! :)

My new camera is a Pentax K10D. I am just continually amazed at what it can do. I'm usually the one with the black pictures at concerts!

Noah And Kai said...

I'll admit I'm a little jealous. Mostly of the giant finger picture. Looks fun. I guess you can have fun without me. I'm sure you felt like something was missing though.

mindy said...

What a fun blog Ellen! I love all your posts. You are so great at getting the details. Missed you on Friday. Hope you got to see David.