Iron and Wine live review
This Iron and Wine live review is of the gig at St Georges Church in November 2007.
Iron and Wine is usually the name adopted by Sam Beam, singer songwriter coming from the folk old school, with husky barely there vocals and slight guitar playing. The name sounds like a band, but its just him, hence I was expecting tonight to be a solo stripped down affair. It was a surprise therefore to find an 8 piece band on the stage, augmenting Iron and Wine’s new tracks with bass, drums, keyboards and string instruments.
Normally I prefer my music big and orchestrated. Its a testimony to Sam Beam’s voice that the best tracks tonight were those without his band, or where the band had restraint and played quietly. This is the way he normally plays, and I’m all up for experimentation, this time however, keeping it simple might just be the way forward. These simple tracks tonight were nothing short of amazing, his voice and simple lyrics are somehow incredibly beautiful and moving, and need nothing added.
The songs with the band were still good, but a little more pedestrian, the backing music often drowning out Sam’s voice and rendering lyrics unintelligible. His voice is too soft to really work on such a scale. That said the bigger songs provided a little variety and made those stripped down songs stand out all the more.
Here’s a track from the gig, one with just a slide guitar initially, leading to full backing.
If Iron and Wine come to your town, get a ticket, whatever form they take, you can be sure that those moments of greatness, however brief, will stand out above most other artists entire gigs.
Iron and Wine albums
For the stripped down side of Iron and Wine, try Our Endless Numbered Days, just one man and his guitar performing beautiful slight tracks. Metacritic found reviews averaged out at 84%, with Popmatters saying ‘Our Endless Numbered Days stuns, sedates, and fills from beginning to end’.
The Shepherds Dog is the latest release and contains more guitars, beats and even world music. Uncut gave it 4 stars ‘Floridian folkie Sam Beam relocates to Texas and gets rhythm’.
Videos
Naked as we came
Lions Mane
Such Great Heights (Postal Service cover)
More Iron and Wine
First off, thanks to the brilliant NPR you can listen to a full length Iron and Wine gig for free online. More gigs over at all songs considered.
Passing Afternoon is the Iron and Wine fansite and has a forum which is busy and thankfully spam free. There is also a good bio and lyrics and tabs to all his songs.
ironandwine.com is the refereshingly simple official site, where all albums can be purchased and you can see live tour dates, news and some photos.
The iron and wine myspace is also well designed, simple and easy to use, and lets you hear the entire new album.