iron & wine live at the paramount theater, oakland

iron & wine and his sister sold out the paramount theater in oakland last night and, remarkably, each ticket landed in the hands of a scrupulously well-mannered, reverent individual. the kind of audience who knew when to cheer and when to shut up, respectful, surely, both of the space - the paramount was larger than expected yet retained a certain intimacy, where whispers from the upstairs (anyone's guess was in the very last row or, occasionally, in the aisle behind the last row to stretch out the legs) carried true to the front - and for the artist, whose voice sounded prettier than you could have hoped. which, oddly, & if i may pick nits on an otherwise fantastic show, would perhaps be the one thing a.g. found slightly disappointing. for it's those suddenly powerful vocal moments, when the hushed prettiness gives way to something more robust & charged with feeling, you can wait an entire song for, an entire album, & which echo in your mind & ears long after the sound has faded, that make beam a transcendent performer. (of course his songwriting is also superb.) last night those moments were largely kept underwraps -- until the encore that is, when samsarah - how flat out well her voice compliments his - sang and absolutely killed "the trapeze swinger" and sent half the audience humming and smiling and singing favorite & memorable lines together underground to wait for the trains to come sweep them up and carry them home.

performance on the entire set, made up largely of songs from the shepherd's dog, was stellar but from the group a handful in particular stood out, at least for me, and versions of them are on offer below. though sam had a seven piece band behind him last night, most of these takes are sparer: the versions of "cinder and smoke" and "trapeze swinger" are from sam and sarah's performance on npr's all songs considered; "upwards over the mountain" and "love song" & "carousel" are all sam solo from concerts at messiah college and pabst theater, respectively; "boy with a coin" is off of the shepherd's dog.

iron & wine - cinder and smoke (live)
iron & wine - upwards over the mountain (live)
iron & wine - boy with a coin
iron & wine - carousel (live)
iron & wine - love song of the buzzard (live)
iron & wine - trapeze swinger (live)