"a tattoo of a flower on a broken wrist" Iron & Wine, Howard Assembly Rooms, Leeds 12.9.10

It’s only in the past month or two that I’ve really dived into Iron & Wine’s (or Sam Beam, as his mum knows him) back catalogue, having purchased the rather wonderful and eclectic ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ last year, I noticed that he was playing a couple of dates in the UK and thought some further investigation was called for. In those two months, two EP’s, two albums and one two disc collection of B-Sides, Demos etc. have been purchased (all though eBay, still with change from a tenner!). Listening through each of the records, there certainly is a notable progression, an increase in fidelity from ‘The Creek Drank The Cradle’ to ‘Our Endless Numbered Days’, the introduction of a full band set up from that to ‘Woman King’ and ‘In The Reins’ (the latter being a split with Calexico) EP’s, then the expansion of that sound on ‘The Shepherds Dog’.

The set drew largely from ‘…Endless…’ and ‘…Dog’ a virtually a capella ‘Flightless Bird, American Mouth’, and a plaintive ‘Each Coming Night’ (opening and closing the set, respectively) left me somewhat dumbfounded, as did the 9 minute epic that is ‘The Trapeze Swinger’.


Iron & Wine - The Trapeze Swinger

Unfortunately, it’s not yet possible to judge the progression from ‘...Dog’ to any of the new material from the forthcoming ‘Kiss Each Other Clean’, as the current set up is incredibly stripped back; an acoustic guitar, and accompaniment from, by turns, piano, accordion and some superb slide guitar. During one of the three new songs that is aired, Beam forgets the lyrics (and the title), as he does during ‘Love Song of the Buzzard’ which does, as his says himself “have a lot of words in it…” these are the only points during a set which flies by, where he falters, and even then, it’s rather endearing. Hopefully he’ll come back around early next year, when ‘Kiss Each Other Clean’ is released, and if he does, I’ll be there.

Tremendous!

On a more personal note, it was nice to finally go to The Grand in Leeds, which Howard Assembly Rooms is part of, we had planned to go and see The Mighty Boosh there on 8th December 2008, but were sadly, otherwise engaged.