{"id":3976,"date":"2011-01-29T22:14:33","date_gmt":"2011-01-29T22:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/?p=3976"},"modified":"2011-10-30T17:52:05","modified_gmt":"2011-10-30T17:52:05","slug":"iron-wine-at-the-wiltern-12611","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/2011-01\/iron-wine-at-the-wiltern-12611\/","title":{"rendered":"Iron & Wine at the Wiltern 1\/26\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"

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We rolled down the 101 on Wednesday to the Wiltern to take in Iron & Wine in concert for the first time.\u00a0 Like many, we’ve been spirited away by this “band” since their first record (“The Creek Drank the Cradle”) was released in 2002 on the prescient Sub Pop label.\u00a0 Despite efforts to the contrary, we had never been able to catch Sam Beam and his entourage-of-one (or more) in a live setting until this night.\u00a0 This was the second night of a sold-out, two-night stand at the Wiltern in LA, one of only two U.S. cities (NYC being the other) to be graced by the band before they head off to Europe to tour in support of their new record, “Kiss Each Other Clean.”<\/p>\n

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Like many in the audience (one of the most respectful, though ardent, audiences in recent memory), we were there to hear the songs performed live that have been burned into our minds and hearts from that first record forward–songs with carefully-crafted lyrics and hum-worthy melodies. \u00a0 The original one-man-band of Sam Beam has grown since that first record from guy-and-guitar to legitimate large-band, and in large part the 11-member Iron & Wine did not disappoint at the Wiltern.\u00a0 Beam and the band have evolved over time from hushed solo singing to a more dynamic and varied sound, that evolution beginning with the comparatively hi-fi second record, “Our Endless Numbered Days,” then progressing further with 2007’s varied and Waits-ian, “The Shepherd’s Dog,” and finally breaking more barriers with the new record, “Kiss Each Other Clean.”\u00a0 Though Iron & Wine throws in some serious twists and turns on the new record (Caribbean, Motown, 70’s rock and dub reggae elements are added to the mix and embellished with horns and synths), Beam hasn’t gone to Adz<\/em>-ian extremes like Sufjan, and his lyrics, stories and vocals are largely still intimate, aching and haunting, filled as they are with romanticism and Biblical iconography.\u00a0 We have marveled over the years at his ever-evocative lyrics, the art of which goes unabated on the new record (a few of our favorite Iron & Wine stanzas are set forth at the end of this post since they are worthy of reading if you haven’t).<\/p>\n

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The band immediately drew the audience (including Scarlett Johannson–oh we are feeling so TMZ here at Lefort) in by starting off their set small, with just Beam on acoustic guitar, a mandolin\/banjo player, a keyboard player, and backup vocals (the perfect Rosie Thomas and Marketa Irglova–the latter of Swell Seasons\/Once<\/em> film fame).\u00a0 The small group matched the intimate opening sounds well as the audience sampled its first taste of Beam’s valid vocals, including a newly-added high-howl-away-from-the-microphone effect that was striking and effective.\u00a0 And we all leaned in to grasp our favorite lyrical moments and resonant storylines.<\/p>\n

Beam began this small-group segment with a number of older songs, including He Lays in the Reins <\/em>and crowd-favorite Naked as We Came (<\/em>in which two lovers grapple with their inevitable mortality), <\/em>before moving to the new album’s Big Burned Hand <\/em>and Godless Brothers of Love, <\/em>and then returning to older songs Bird Stealing Bread <\/em>and Teeth in the Grass. <\/em> These older songs were given new arrangements which added complexity to the originals, all of which was well-received by the crowd.\u00a0 But it was the lyrics and singing which drew us further in, with lyrics like the following from the new Big Burned Hand<\/em> that rendered the audience rapt:<\/p>\n

“When the arrogant goddess of love came to steal my shoes
\nShe had a white-hot pistol and a homemade heart tattoo
\nSinging, ‘one’s to give and one’s to take away,
\nBut neither of them will keep you off your knees’
\nHer children bowed and bolted off the stage
\nWhile the lion and the lamb kept fighting for the shade tree.”<\/p>\n

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Throughout the evening, Sam was greeted by loud cheers mixed with good-natured heckling, and Beam deflected the heckling in a relaxed, ingratiating manner.\u00a0 When Sam asked if the audience had attended the prior night’s show, an audience member jokingly yelled out that Sam better do a better job, and Beam just smiled and reassured the audience that he’d try. He later commended the balcony for not being afraid of heights. When certain songs were called for from the audience Beam patiently grinned and said he didn’t “want to let the cat out of the bag, just yet.”\u00a0 Throughout\u00a0 he was conversational and clever, and in short order we all just wanted to buy him a glass of the red and have a good chat.\u00a0 But after a while, as nice as he was, we grew somewhat tired of the banter and wished, given the breadth of his discography, that he had spent less time talking and more time singing more songs.\u00a0 We admit being greedy.<\/p>\n

At the end of the small-group segment,\u00a0 we sensed that the crowd was drifting a bit despite the band’s mesmerizing delivery on Teeth In The Grass<\/em>.\u00a0 Fortunately, Sam shored up the proceedings by adding to the band’s ranks with a three-member horn section, bass and drums.\u00a0 The crowd’s interest renewed, Beam used the larger-band to great effect with a rousing reading of the new Tree By The River<\/em>.\u00a0 For better and worse, this was not the same old (Iron &) wine.\u00a0 The big band brought some funk and 70s sounds to the proceedings and, get this, this Iron & Wine audience was seen to (gasp) dance and rock a bit.\u00a0 The horns and drums, and altered arrangements, lent some new life to old favorites like “Boy With a Coin” and “Cinder and Smoke.”\u00a0 Fortunately, Beam is less mischievous and more-respectful of his fans than Dylan circa Rolling-Thunder-Revue, so the songs were still recognizable and hummable.\u00a0 But if we had one particular complaint it is that the bigger sound dilutes some of the emotional wallop and confessional tone of the old stripped-down Iron & Wine settings.\u00a0 Like seeing Sufjan this past Fall when he purposely left out his old banjo-and-hush songs, at times this night we yearned to just have Sam by his lonesome with solo guitar (perhaps with one background vocalist).\u00a0 We understand, though, the need for artists to evolve and stave off the crushing boredom of singing the same song in the same fashion for the thousandth time.\u00a0 So the old-school fans may have been somewhat disappointed by the big band, but in general we laud and respect the new tact from Iron & Wine.<\/p>\n

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With all of these thoughts rumbling ’round our graying gray-matter, and Sam having apparently read our minds, for the encore Beam came back out solo with only his steel-stringed guitar and proceeded to overwhelm us with one of his finest songs, The Trapeze Swinger<\/em>.\u00a0 We’ve never heard such a quiet Wiltern crowd, and we all sat enthralled by the storyline and sheer poetry of this song.\u00a0 Sam began appropriately plaintive, while singing his request to another that they “please remember me fondly.” But in short order he gathered momentum in telling “that the pearly gates had some eloquent graffiti like ‘We’ll meet again’ and ‘Fuck the man,’ and ‘Tell my mother not to worry.'” Sam described the eloquent graffiti in earnest, giving one the sense that these pearly gates may have been tagged by those that were rebuffed from entry and intimating that we all are trapeze-ing between our own heavens and hells.\u00a0 And so the audience trapezed with Beam throughout the near-nine minutes of this powerful song.<\/p>\n

This was the Iron & Wine that we had come to hear in all its (his) glory.\u00a0 A man, a guitar and some of the best songs ever written.\u00a0 Done, Sam.\u00a0 We will remember you and this evening fondly.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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You can see the encore in all its glory at the link below, followed by a fine Austin City Limits version:<\/p>\n