The movie Once, which is basically my top movie of the year so far, had songs written and performed by Glen Hansgard and Marketa Irglova that were, at least to me, spellbinding and timeless. Their passion in these songs is so evident.

Anyways, they appeared on Leno last night and it’s worth a look.

There are also a few other You Tube videos of them in various venues and locations. Frustrates me that I had no clue about a screening in Tempe of this movie.

“Falling Slowly”, Tempe, AZ at a screening

 ”If you want me”, Tempe, AZ at a screening

 ”Say it to me now”, Tempe, AZ at a screening (this one rocks)

I haven’t been to many concerts in my life. You might be able to count them on two hands. But when I do, it’s usually a great time and a band I really want to see. Or I’ve been dragged along. Well Wednesday was the one concert I’ve looked forward to the most in my entire life: Snow Patrol at Dodge Theater for their North American Tour 2007.

My friends know I love them. I liked them before they got played so much here in the U.S., before they were put all over Grey’s Anatomy. I thought about it after the concert and I really have never liked a band as much as this one. This is the one group in all my life that I feel I discovered on my own, that hasn’t been some oldie band, or the Moody Blues or whatever.

So finally seeing them come out on stage was…an amazing experience. Their music is so passionate and powerful, their lyrics so poetic. Gary Lightbody, who is the lead singer and basically wrote all their songs, is an amazing artist. I’ve never had a CD in which I’ve loved every single song on it, but Eyes Open is the exception. They played almost every track from that album and seeing them all performed live…well it was one of those times in my life I wont soon forget.

Chasing Cars has some of the most beautiful lyrics I’ve heard and Lightbody calls it “the most pure and open love song I’ve ever written…”. It’s amazing how in my quest for focus and patience, the song has some great words in it:

If I lay here, if I just lay here
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world

I added some pictures from the concert from my crappy enV…next time Mike, bring a REAL camera!

And in honor of them and the blast I had tonight, I added a Snow Patrol-only playlist I’ll keep up for a bit and I also changed the header of this page to a great shot I found on Flickr.

Okay, so we’re sitting this morning waiting for Harry Potter to start, Jina gets up to get some popcorn because we were saving seats and I’m a lot BETTER at it than she is. So while she’s gone, I hear a song that sounds kind of good coming from the pre-show “entertainment”. I was thinking it would be nice if they showed the name of the band or song somewhere, but to no avail.

So I remember a text I got from Verizon a few months ago. It was something too amazing to believe, but that you could use your phone to listen to a song playing on the radio or in the car, and it could identify it and then you’d be able to find it and use it as a ringtone. Sure it can.

I whip it out on a whim, install the app on my enV, and hold the phone up to the screen. Now I had no idea if the phone could even pick up the sound, but I sat there anyways.

The phone said “Listening for music.”

Then it said “Identifying song”

And bam, the name of the song shows up on the screen, with the band who did it and a link to find the ringtone or email the info to yourself. It was totally right.

Technology is sickenly awesome.

On a side note, it was “Hey there Delilah” by the Plain White T’s, which was pretty ironic considering my love for vintage tshirts. You can even listen to it right now on my Blogmusik playlist to the right.

I’m trying out something new, called Blogmusik, which allows you to create playlists on their site and embed them into your blog so people can listen to music while they read. I mean, it just doesn’t get much cooler than that. It’s like MySpace but on steroids.

So check out the playlist on the right, see if you enjoy any of the tunes, tell me how it works.

So we blame our parents for a lot of things…raising us wrong, for not loving us enough, etc. All our emotional baggage and makeup can usually be attributed to how they screwed us up.

Okay, I’m kidding…sort of. But today I realized just how badly my dad messed me up. There was a Moody Blues high-def concert on Sunday night and I Tivo-ed it because my dad loved them and we listened to them growing up ALL THE TIME.

So I turned it on while working at home today and I knew most of the words to almost ALL THE SONGS. The Moody Blues! I was like singing the words out loud and swaying in my chair (swaying, because I sure as frak can’t dance). I can’t tell you who sang most songs…ever…but if you want to know about the band who did Nights in White Satin, just holler.

Pandora. Yeah, this post wasn’t just a rant on my dad. Check out Pandora.com. It’s a free, streaming internet radio station where you can put in a few band names and it finds others like it and basically creates a little radio station for you. It’s a great way to find new music throughout your day. Registration is free.