Winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2008 for “Falling Slowly” from the movie “Once,” Glen Hansard ended his speech encouraging people to “make art.”
Hansard was doing just that until his tragic and unexpected death July 29 in a motorcycle crash in Dublin. He was 56.
Beyond starring in and making music for the 2007 indie movie phenomenon “Once,” which inspired a Broadway musical in 2012 that won eight Tony Awards, Hansard was the frontman for the rock band The Frames, played in the duo The Swell Season with his “Once” co-star and collaborator Markéta Irglová, and had a solo career. In April he released “Don+t Settle (Vol. 1 – Transmissions East),” a live album recorded on his 55th birthday.
“I’ve always been more comfortable on stage than in a studio,” Hansard said in a statement announcing the two-part album (volume two has yet to be released). “A song needs witnesses. It’s where I feel like I can really grab hold of it.”
Hansard’s passion as a live performer was evident at Milwaukee concerts over the years, and different from many of his peers. No doubt inspired by his busking days in Dublin, he frequently brought spontaneity to the stage that made those shows special events, inviting locals and fans to “make art” by his side.
At the Riverside Theater in 2008 with The Swell Season, Paul Kosidowski wrote in his Journal Sentinel review that Hansard “let the Whitefish Bay Middle School Choir steal the show by joining him in his Oscar-winning ‘Falling Slowly.'” Journal Sentinel movie critic Duane Dudek wrote that the performance “gave me gooseflesh,” and suggested seeing the song performed live in that format was his “favorite movie moment” of the year.
Four years later, Hansard’s Pabst Theater performance would top my list of favorite Milwaukee concerts of 2012.
“There are few other folk singers who sing with such urgency, at times even violence, as Hansard. His use of yelled vocals – like unbridled bursts of pure emotion – provide a gripping dynamic live, juxtaposed with his songs’ more subdued moments,” I wrote in my review.
Hansard was having so much fun changing the setlist on the fly – including a shaky but infectious performance of The Band’s “The Weight” – that the show went an extra half-hour.
It also included another spontaneous moment, when Hansard invited a fan to come onstage and sing “Falling Slowly” with him.
“I could only see the first couple of rows, thank God,” said Indiana’s Anna Pesut, who pitched the Milwaukee onstage collaboration over Twitter, sending him her cover of the song on SoundCloud.
Pesut never heard back, she told the Journal Sentinel, and was shocked by Hansard’s mid-show stage invite. She also was invited backstage to hang with the band after the show.
“I’ve never played in front of a crowd that large before,” she told the Journal Sentinel. “It was a dream come true.”
Last July, Hansard returned to Milwaukee with Irglová for The Swell Season’s reunion tour, with the Riverside Theater tour stop landing on my best concerts of 2025 list.
Once more, Hansard’s enthusiasm led to some unplanned magic, including a largely a cappella rendition of the classic 19th-century Irish ballad “The Rocky Road to Dublin,” and a cover of The Frames’ “God Bless Mom” at a fan’s shouted request.
And Hansard again offered the stage to a local musician, oboe player Vinny Moloney, who he met before the show. Moloney happened to have his instrument with him, and following some back-and-forth shouting during the show, Moloney came down from his balcony seat to play oboe with the band for “Slowly” and two other “Once” songs, “Say It To Me Now” and “Gold.”
“We’re only here once, after all, so let’s make voices count, and our days and our nights matter,” I wrote in my review. “In Milwaukee, The Swell Season, with a little help from a local oboe player, did just that.”
Contact Piet Levy at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him at facebook.com/PietLevy.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Glen Hansard, killed in crash, made lasting memories on Milwaukee stages
Reporting by Piet Levy, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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By Piet Levy, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
