Iron & Wine: True musicianship never fails.

At any given concert, there are a few non-musical factors that always contribute greatly (or, in turn, are remarkably absent). Such as recognition and emotional connection - the reason I always get a lump in my throat when Kashmir play 'The Aftermath', for example. The show and visuals are also important parts; this is the reason why many a concert at big-ass venues and stages always etch themselves decisively into your memory. But when you go to a show at a stripped-down and basic venue, with an artist whose latest album you've heard only a handful of times, and from whose back catalogue you know absolutely nothing, the only thing to lift the experience is the music and musicality itself.


That's how it was for me at Iron & Wine this Saturday. Luckily, Sam Beam and his seven-man/woman entourage of gifted musicians proved in every way able to manage such a daunting task. Unless you're one of the die-hard, nu-country addicts to be offended by Beam's thorough reinterpretations of much of his early stuff (such as the reviewer who covered the concert at Vega yesterday for Soundvenue, and gave it a 3/6 - who poured fucking acid into that guy's beer?), it's hard to imagine not being won over by Iron & Wine's enchanting show this Saturday.


I was especially impressed by the musicians' unbelievable wit. I've seen and heard some good musicians play in my time, but I have rarely experienced eight (eight!) of them to be so unyieldingly tight. The percussionist was ingenious, and the bassist was as scintillatingly awesome as only bassists can be. It's so splendidly fascinating when a lot of musicians play very little each, and you're able to hear each and every little sound. OK, I give, it's a relatively easier task to captivate the absolute attention of a small audience in an intimate venue, than to catch all the inevitable passersby at a festival, but put that notion on its head, and it's an equally impressive achievement to be an uber-niche American act unknown to everyone bar the connoisseur posse of Pitchfork faithfuls, and sell out an - alright, small - but still significant venue in a Joe Normal town in Scandinavia, and have this crowd silent as at a funeral at key points in the set, such as during the completely overwhelmingly beautiful closer, 'Flightless Bird, American Mouth'.


So for all the musical wit and all the accolades, the bottom line must in all fairness be, that this was an extraordinarily well-played hour and a half of unquestionably viable, life-affirmingly well composed material - honestly, one of the better concert's I've ever attended!


Other than that, I've had an absolutely brilliant and, yeah, life-affirming weekend of interesting new people, good friends and happy reunions and long-time-no-sees, not to mention the Pack winning the Supe yesterday night. Exactly the kind of weekend I needed after a few ones of becoming ineluctably moody by the clock's and the alcohol level's passing a certain point. I'm up and running again (I think), and today I won't let even the grey as weather put me down!