The Frames and Josh Ritter

Last night Fran and I went to see The Frames with Josh Ritter in support and it was absolutely brilliant.
Last time we saw Josh Ritter he was on his own with an acoustic guitar in a tiny club with about 100 people. That night it was a lovely intimate set with little stories and lots of audience interaction.
Last night even though he was in the support slot you could tell alot of people came out to see him, which really seemed to give him a big lift. This time he was with a full band, keyboards, drum and bass and sounded fantastic. He showcased a lot of tracks from his new album out in April, and all I can say is it's already on my top album list of 2006. Sometimes new material takes a while to get into but Josh's new songs were much deeper and seemed more mature (I know that's a cliche) than his last record (which is a great record). I could easily have gone home happy after Josh's set but the night was only getting started.
The Frames are the perfect live band.
Glenn Hansard, their frontman (you might know him as one of the Commitments), knows how to work an audience. That's the key to it, he uses the audience. Last night we were singing along to the choruses and even mimicing the violin at one point. Whilst we were doing that Glenn was conducting us like a giant theramin at the same time doing the close encouter hand thing. He's also a big one for stories and jokes and explaining songs but they can also take the piss out of their own music.
They also throw alot of other stuff into their songs. Last night we got some Pink Floyd, some Snow Patrol and the customary "Pure Imagination" song from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
As we were leaving Fran said she thought they sounded like a band built for much bigger venues, they almost have a stadium rock sound. I think they have a bit of a Dave Matthews feel to them but with a bit of harder edge. It's great that their playing smaller venues but I would love to see them play to 30 or 40 thousand just to see what Glenn Hansard could get 40 thousand people to do.
It was magical.
Alan