Iron & Wine Live.

darcymdarcym Frets: 1297
I've "enjoyed" Iron & Wine for a few years, some nice songwriting and a nice voice, sometimes a little hit and miss in terms of album content, but certainly on my list of regular listens.

My wife got me tickets to go to the Hammersmith gig earlier this month, and I must say how impressive the live sound and show is. 
The live versions of the songs are so much better, the live band that is put together is excellent, and Sam Beam is a far better front man than the albums show, he's funny, engaging, his live voice I can't explain why is a much better fit for the music, much more natural, and he blends it with the female members of the bands voice so well. The guitar playing, listening to the album sounds "nice" but when you see it live, you understand how talented Sam is, he's not a guitar god, but his ability is unquestioned when you watch. Pretty much all the music is in alternative tunings which you don't realise until you see him play, and the way he flips between the impossible to play chords without an alternative tuning, to standard tuning licks, but played on alternative tuned guitar throughout the song, wow, it's natural and faultless (try it, it's really hard to do, let alone hard to do well).

I walked away wanting a quality nylon string acoustic - because most of the set was played on fantastic sounding nylon string acoustics (Taylors I think) with a lovely burst style finish.

I was looking forward to the gig, but I came away with a lot more wow than I'd expected.

If you get the chance, check out Iron & Wine if they are in your area as they don't come over to the UK often.
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Comments

  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Frets: 13929
    edited February 2018
    The only song I have by Iron & Wine is 'Such Great Heights" on the B-Side of The Postal Service "Such Great Heights" EP which is brilliant. I read somewhere that it was recorded over the phone?


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  • duotoneduotone Frets: 972
    The only song I have by Iron & Wine is 'Such Great Heights" on the B-Side of The Postal Service "Such Great Heights" EP which is brilliant. I read somewhere that it was recorded over the phone?
    Not sure about that @RandallFlagg ;

    are you getting muddled up with the guys from the Postal Service calling themselves that name as they:

    "The band's name was chosen due to the way in which it produced its songs. Due to conflicting schedules, Tamborello wrote and performed instrumental tracks and then sent the DATs to Gibbard through the United States Postal Service, who then edited the song as he saw fit (adding his vocals along the way) and sent them back to Tamborello." * stolen from Wikipedia!
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  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Frets: 13929
    duotone said:
    The only song I have by Iron & Wine is 'Such Great Heights" on the B-Side of The Postal Service "Such Great Heights" EP which is brilliant. I read somewhere that it was recorded over the phone?
    Not sure about that @RandallFlagg ;

    are you getting muddled up with the guys from the Postal Service calling themselves that name as they:

    "The band's name was chosen due to the way in which it produced its songs. Due to conflicting schedules, Tamborello wrote and performed instrumental tracks and then sent the DATs to Gibbard through the United States Postal Service, who then edited the song as he saw fit (adding his vocals along the way) and sent them back to Tamborello." * stolen from Wikipedia!
    Probably, I think when I read it I wasn't aware that the song Such Great Heights was a cover so I may have been reading about The Postal Service without realising it! 


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