From a long interview/review piece in Irishphiladelphia.com:
Opening acts don’t get much respect. Audiences who paid good money for the main course tend to linger in the lobby, taking advantage of the hour to suck back a few more Michelob Lites or house Chardonnays till the unknowns clear the stage and the “real” show begins.
All the lobby lizards who missed the band that opened for Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (stars of the little Irish jewel of a film, “Once,” performing as The Swell Season) on May 20 at Upper Darby’s Tower Theater will be adding that lapse to their “woulda coulda shoulda” list somewhere down the line.
The people who stayed were captivated, rapt, glued to their seats for the hour that Interference, one of Ireland’s most influential bands for the last two decades (say the musicians, like Hansard, whom they’ve influenced), commanded the stage. When I would occasionally glance down my row, I saw the ultimate compliment an audience can pay a performer. Not applause. Not a standing ovation. Smiles. A brightening of the eye. Body language that echoed the performers’—what experts call “kinesic communication.” Connection. These were the people who were out in the lobby at intermission, lined up at the Interference CD table like the band was selling $2-a-gallon gas.
Full interview available here