Project Description

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IRON & WINE

@ Astor Theatre

02/06/18

(Live Review)

Reviewer: Melanie D Griffiths

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A quick search through a relic of the late 2000s – my iPhone 3gs, would reveal an iPod that looked like it had been curated from Pitchfork’s “Best of..” lists. Indie-garage rock, post-punk and a lot of folk-indie music including Iron & Wine, the moniker of musician Sam Beam. Iron & Wine may not elicit the recognition of other famed folksters like Bon Iver but his work has always bubbled with beautiful melodies rising from Beam’s rich storytelling.

And it was one of those concerts, where the crackle of anticipation and excitement of seeing for the first time an admired artist rippled around the room. For everything that Beam offered, it was eagerly received making for a gig that was surprisingly sanguine, especially when he dryly stated about his music and one song in particular, “It’s not exactly the feel good hit of the year…

That slightly self-deprecating humour began with support act, Fraser A Gorman. A lithe man, with a mop of curls and pointed beatnik boots who came out with his guitar and harmonica and addressed the mood in the room, “Holy Shit! It’s Leo Sayer dressed as Bob Dylan.” Once that ice was broken the crowd were content to quietly sit back as Gorman played through a set of introspective rather Dylan-esque folk. With a new album in July and gigs in September he will be one to see again.

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Gorman gave thanks to, and made mention of Iron & Wine and the incredibly gracious players within the band. Indeed the band were well suited characters on a stage that was hued in candy coloured hues dotted by hanging clouds of cotton bolls making the stage look like an otherworldly American landscape.

It was 2013’s Ghost on Ghost’s Winter Prayers that opened the set, a quiet song that made the listener pitch forward like we were being let in on a secret. Beam’s voice which flittered from delicateness to a soulful timbre is like listening to a mindfulness app it’s so soothing. The Trapeze Song and Claim Your Ghost was like peering into Beam’s window and seeing a small vignette of an old memory.

A request for “old songs’ by someone in the crowd brought up a chuckle from the American, as if accepting that it would be hard to begrudge since it was his first time in Perth. And so it was a perfect intro to 2007’s Wolves (Song Of The Shepherd’s Dog), a quirky roly-poly song more akin to jazz than folk.

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Iron & Wine

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It’s what separates Iron & Wine from the chaff, an embrace of poetic lyrics and sometimes surprising parts like the appearance of Christmas bells or a plucky double bass during Last Night or the equally infectious Boy With A Coin. It gives the music a momentum that pushes and pulls us out of our folk reverie producing an almost theatrical performance.

Between songs and sips from a glass of red wine, Beam bantered with the audience with all the charm of a laidback Southern gentleman. Funny and affable, whilst the songs had serious emotional undertones, Beam appeared to never take it too seriously. During a very wordy Jesus The Mexican Boy, Beam forgot the lyrics twice but just laughed it off and continued on through with About A Bruise, Arms Of A Thief, and Pagan Angel And A Borrowed Car.

It was a refined and elegant performance, that captured the imagination of an audience with not only enticing songs but from some damn excellent playing from all of those up on stage. Iron & Wine, are an enduring triumph creating unique nuanced folk music of complexity that this Perth crowd were very grateful for.  

4.5 Stars

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Iron & Wine

Photo – Jenny Black

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