Iron and Wine review, Orpheum Theatre, Nov. 28, 2007

When quiet became the new black a few years ago, it was just a matter of time before someone would rise to the top of the soft music heap. That person is Sam Beam, aka Iron and Wine, who thrilled a capacity crowd at the Orpheum recently with a group of songs whose caliber few are capable of producing.

Based on his past work, many have come to associate Iron with a guy and a guitar, possibly a bit of tambourine, going the bare minimum route and letting the vocal do the job of carrying the emotion of the song. For this show, that time has past as Beam played with seven others musicians, playing steel guitar, fiddle, guitar, two sets of drums, and xylophone. This isn't to say he was rocking out in the traditional sense, but more rollicking than music on his earlier works.

The feeling of the show was a bit of a love-in, with folks yelling out "I love you" and Sam saying he loved them back and every other song. I was impressed by the politeness of the crowd, and the fact that the band can pack the Orpheum with such quiet music.

Carousel from the new album is the first song from the new album played with minimal instrumentation, with a female vocalist singing harmonies, tempering Beam's somewhat high voice. Someday the Waves has a nice combo of steel guitar and xylo that works well, imbuing a bit of a Ry Cooder/Paris, TX soundtrack feeling. Upward over the Mountain has Beam all alone singing melancholic lyrics about a man's relationship with his mother. This is the kind of stuff that you can close your eyes and just go places listening to.

Sound engineers talk about a "soundstage" that gets presented with a good sound mix. The theory is you should be able to close your eyes and pick out the fiddle on the left, the singer in the middle and the lap steel on the right, with the music being well blended at the same time. This was achieved that night at the Orpheum, with the sound nearly dead on. With all the instruments in the mix, Beam's voice got a little lost at times. But besides that, overall the evening's sound quality was stellar.

Beam has a way with lyrics, seemingly effortlessly so, as witnessed on the new single Boy with a Coin.

A boy with a coin he found in the weeds

With bullets and pages of trade magazines

Close to a car that flipped on the turn

When God left the ground to circle the world

On Freedom Hangs like Heaven, Beam straps on a hollow body electric, and went with a slower version that never quite captured the immediacy of the recorded one. But then he kicks up a notch immediately with a bass heavy reggae tinged instrumental and all is forgiven, showing a new direction from the recently released album The Shepard's Dog. Interestingly enough he did not do Such Great Heights or Love and Some Verses, two of my favorites.

Overall Iron and Wine is not for everyone, especially for those who need some noise in their music. But those who haven't heard Beam practically breath his lyrics, imbibing them with something special indeed, are missing out. His final song of the night, a solo encore, was Trapeze Singer, whose character is asking "Please remember me." No problem Sam, no problem.