Last night was the Iron & Wine show at WorkPlay. Even nursing a head cold, Sam Beam was amazing. Beam, his sister Sarah, and his backing band made for an evening of lovely music. Charmingly soft-spoken and self-effacing, his on-stage persona complimented his light, airy yet moody tunes. Old songs were given new, full-band arrangements that worked surprisingly well (I would have balked at the idea of converting the soft, solo acoustic numbers for drums and electric guitars had I not witnessed the results for myself). The full show will be available on playedlastnight.com sometime in the coming week. Here is a clip of a song he did not play last night. Enjoy.
The only blemish on an otherwise wonderful night was the fact that WorkPlay once again sequestered us away in the truly shitty “soundstage” – a dark, cave-like standing-room-only performance space with a crappy folding-table cash-only bar. We are surmising that they are doing this in order to sell more tickets than they could for the intimate table-and-chairs set up in the proper theater. Unlike the Ted Leo debacle, however, Iron & Wine was just too good to walk out on. So we soldiered on. We stood up and fought the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds. I sipped watered down gin and tonics from little plastic glasses rather than the bottle of wine I was planning on ordering. So, WorkPlay gets a tremendous thumbs-down, but Iron & Wine earned two and a half thumbs-up. Go see them if you get the chance.