What better way to start the musical year than with Iron and
Wine, live on the Paradiso main stage.
Back in 2011 I placed them as my second favourite show of the
year, only behind The Avett Brothers and just as I noted back then, even as the
first show of the year, the hauntingly beautiful folk-pop melodies of Sam Beam
are going to be tough to beat all year long.
They started off the night exactly where they finished the
show last time around, opening with crowd favourite, The Trapeze Swinger
followed by Monkey’s Uptown from Kiss
Each Other Clean.
After two such well-known songs they then moved into three songs
from their sixth and most recent studio album Beast Epic. Overall they would play 6 songs from the new album,
which was about one third of the show. The songs went down well with the crowd,
partly on the back of the new albums strength but also based on the crowd
engagement with Sam.
The softly spoken South Carolina native uses his persistent politeness
and easy laugh to interact with the fans between most songs. You get the
feeling he could almost play anything he wanted and the people would listen, as
long as it came with a bit of story and involved his gentle guitar picking and smooth
vocals.
Epic Beast is a return to earlier sounds for the band, more
fragile, unplugged, clearer vocals. And the remainder of the set tended to be
songs that fitted that sounds, with a couple of songs from each of the earlier
albums but no more from the louder, more electronic Kiss Each Other Clean.
The highlight of the night for me came from the final song
before the encore, when to our very happy surprise they played Love and Some Verses.
This was the bridal waltz at our wedding and one of ‘our
songs’ but the band very rarely play it any more so we did not have high hopes
of hearing it on the night. It was a beautiful version, slowed down and a little
quitter than the album version and we really enjoyed it.
They finished the night with Grass Widows, which I thought was a bit of a strange choice for a
single song encore. Especially considering they could have gone with Such Great Heights, Woman King or Tree by the River all of which did
makes the set-list tonight.
Perhaps the standard Saturday Night Paradiso Dance Party was
demanding a tight finish and this was the best they could do.
Nevertheless it was a fantastic show and once again Iron and
Wine have set the bar high for live shows in 2018.
Photos courtesy of Bibian Bingen @ Paradiso Amsterdam
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