|
Bottom of the Hill Februay 8, 2003 Review by Jake Thomas I was extremely excited about this show going in. I've been listening to the Iron & Wine cd quite a bit (Sam Beam is Iron & Wine), and The Shins record is one of my favorite releases of the last couple of years (James Mercer is the singer of the Shins). I was actually afraid that I was putting so much pressure on this being a good show, that it could never live up to it. Luckily, it was even better than I ever expected. Rosie Thomas was the opener, but I got there right as she was finishing. I still got to see bits and pieces of her though, as she came on the stage and accompanied the other two at various times during their sets. Sam Beam had the middle slot. Like I said, his album 'The Creek Drank the Cradle', under the moniker Iron & Wine, is damn good and everyone should check it out. His voice is simply amazing on the album, and just as impressive if not even more so live. It reminds me a hell of lot of Gary Lightbody's voice, who is the singer of the Scottish band Snow Patrol, but something about Sam's vocals really works its way inside of you and makes itself a little nest, not unlike a tapeworm; only you don't have to eat extra food to appease his voice. He played most of his album, along with a few other songs that were damn good and will hopefully see the light of day in some sort of form so that I might purchase and enjoy them at my leisure. In addition, it always pleases me when I see a singer/songwriter type who isn't all withdrawn and angst ridden - Sam was quite chatty and smiling the whole time, and for some reason he reminded me of Matthew McConoughey with his laid back style and souther drawl. Also, he had an awesome Will-Oldham style beard, which I enjoyed seeing but was also jealous because I grow such a scraggly, ugly beard and end up looking like a Rastafarian when I do so. Both James Mercer and Rosie Thomas came out and helped on a song or two, which was nice in that it switched up the show a little, and Rosie's backing vocals sounded great. Even though he was in the middle slot, he still played an encore, and a damn fine one at that - 'I Wanna Be Sedated' by the Ramones, done in summer camp sing-a-long fashion. I was already damn pleased with this evening, and James Mercer played the role of icing on an already decadently tasty cake. I wasn't real sure what James was going to play, if he had a bunch of solo stuff to do, or maybe some old Flake Music songs, but it turned out to mostly be Shins tracks. Not just the songs off of the album, but some of their lesser known B-side releases as well. He also accompanied the songs with harmonica from time to time, giving them a very different feel from the poppy, psychedelic medium that you're accustom to hearing their songs played in. One of the shining moments was when Sam came out for a duet with him on 'New Slang', easily my favorite Shins song; it was pretty and amazing and pretty amazing. For the finale, all three musicians came on stage for the final song, giving it a very CSNY 'everyone singing at the same time' sound that was damn good. If you missed this show, I'm sorry, you really missed out. It will easily be one of my favorite shows of the year. I'm already excited about the return of Iron & Wine in a few weeks. --- View photos from previous shows with James band The Shins: April 26, 2002 @ Great American Music Hall June 12, 2002 @ The Fillmore ©2003 playinginfog.com |