U2’s Bono and The Edge, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, Damien Dempsey, Hozier, Imelda May and actor Steve Coogan were among the mourners who gathered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin this afternoon (August 4) for the funeral of Irish singer-songwriter and actor Glen Hansard.
The frontman of The Frames, one half of folk rock duo The Swell Season, and the guitarist with Eddie Vedder’s solo band The Earthlings, Hansard, 56, lost his life in a motorcycle crash in Lucan, on the outskirts of his hometown Dublin, on July 29.
Former US President Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, U2 and Bob Geldof were among those who have paid tribute to the Ballymun-born musician, who first came to international attention playing the role of guitar player Outspan Foster in the 1991 film The Commitments, and won a Best Original Song Oscar in 2008 for Falling Slowly, from the soundtrack to Irish indie film Once, which he co-wrote with his Swell Season partner and Once co-star Markéta Irglová.
At Hansard’s funeral service, Bono played the congregation a voice mail from Patti Smith before reciting the lyrics to his own band’s 2000 single Beautiful Day. The singer also celebrated Hansard’s gift for making everyone he met feel special and appreciated.
“People on the green outside, best friends,” he said. “People tuning in, best friends. Even people who haven’t met him, best friends. Everyone who met him, they just remember the day they met him.”
Bono reads out lyrics of U2’s A Beautiful Day at Glen Hansard’s funeral – YouTube
Eddie Vedder later joined Markéta Irglová and The Frames to perform Hansard’s The Song of Good Hope, from Rhythm and Repose, his first solo studio album, which was released in 2012.
Vedder and Hansard’s friendship developed in the wake of a tragedy, when Pearl Jam’s vocalist got in touch with the Irish musician in 2010 after a concert-goer at a Swell Season show in California died by suicide jumping off the rooftop of the venue, and landing on the stage. Ten years earlier, nine music fans lost their lives during Pearl Jam’s performance at the Roskilde festival in Denmark, and Vedder was mindful of the trauma he had experienced at the time, which prompted his call to Hansard.