Let’s be clear. Iron & Wine’s Tampa fans — who haven't seen the band in the area since 2014 — behaved much better than the chatty Orlando audience that witnessed frontman Sam Beam and his band of musical assassins support the band’s new album, Beast Epic, at the Beacham late last lear.
But let’s be honest, too. The 44-year-old songwriter probably doesn't ever face and audience less interested in interjecting itself, or song requests, into the show than it is in just listening. Thankfully Beam, who’s been playing his very special brand of quiet folk music since the early aughts, knows how to disarm hecklers of every stripe.
His response to song requests? “Ah, another feel good hit of the year.”
The request to come back to Tampa? “We’re in Tampa right now.”
Oh, and the one where someone asked Beam if he knew how to count ballots? “Math is hard, man.”
You get the idea. But still, some in the audience didn’t get when to just quit. Beam playfully trolled one request for “The Trapeze Swinger,” saying, “That one’s way too long,” (despite the fact he was playing it right then and there) — but another audience member just couldn’t be OK with letting the cello fade uninterrupted into the highlight from 2009’s Around the Well.
“I’m going to play this song now, if that’s cool” Beam stated before percussionist Beth Goodfellow restarted the tune. That particular exchange was the only offensive moment in an otherwise perfect night where Tampa Theatre staff efficiently handled a sold-out crowd of more than 1,300 that’d scooped up every available seat months before doors opened.
There was a palpable buzz in the building before showtime, and Ohmme, a Chicago trio led by guitarist-songwriters Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart, would only amplify that energy with its eight-song set of crescendoing, time signature-jumping, expertly-mixed and delightfully-peculiar art-rock.
The soft-loud dynamic combined with Stewart and Cunningham’s harmonies made for an invigorating kickstart, but things predictably mellowed out when Beam — flanked by percussionist Beth Goodfellow, bassist Sebastian Steinberg, keyboardist Elizabeth Hardy Jones and cellist Helen Gillet — tiptoed into “Winter Prayers,” the first of a 20-song, 100-minute set that barely dipped into Weed Garden, the new EP Iron & Wine released at the tail end of the summer.
The band — propelled by the one-two of Steinberg, who switched between upright and electric bass and Goodfellow, who, well, played any percussion instrument she could get her hands and feet on — wasted no time falling into a deep groove on “Dearest Forsaken,” and would layer on lush vocals (a lovely and laconic crawl through “Someday the Waves” found Jones joining Goodfellow for gut-wrenching harmonies), dramatic lighting (“Last Night”) and upper-octave cello flourishes before settling down for a devastatingly sad and slow take on “Summer Clouds” which found the soft stage clouds swaying softly in the ambient air swirling in the space between the stage and Tampa Theatre’s stoic and starry ceiling.
That simple, stripped-back beauty resurfaced towards the tail end of the set during “Song In Stone” — an impossibly beautiful ballad that’s as transcendent as the backwater dreams and poison wine Beam sings about on the Beast Epic highlight — and again during an encore strum through “Fever Dream.” Still, most of the set was driven by subtle, steady rhythms like “Right for Sky.” A solo performance of “Naked As We Came” even inspired someone in the mezzanine to attempt a clap-along, which Beam addressed immediately.
“I don't know if you know…. this isn't really a clap-along kind of song,” he joked. “I love you, thanks for coming mama —I appreciate the effort.”
At times, the crowd and its sprightliness felt a little like a stain on an otherwise surreal show inside of one of Tampa’s most charming venues, but Beam — a consummate toastmaster and band leader — quickly added levity and perspective to each and every perceived interruption. The band’s early take on “Wolves” from The Shepherd’s Dog was especially funky, and immediately connected the band to its audience. That comfort naturally inspired one of the evening’s many, often unnerving, heckles, but Beam quickly quashed any animosity that may have began to bubble inside any of the more irritable concertgoers in the crowd.
“You guys are fun, and making music is fun,” he plainly stated, drawing a cheer from the crowd. “It’s beautiful, fun, and fucked up at the same time — just like us.”
Beam was right. Songs, even spiritual and serene ones like his, are, at their core, simply fun to make. And there was no way way any amount of heckling was going to fuck that up.
Listen to a playlist featuring songs from the show below, and visit photos.cltampa.com to see more pictures from the set.
Setlists
Ohmme
You, Your Face
Peach
Parts
Liquor Cabinet
Fingerprints
Icon
Sentient Beings
Water
Iron & Wine
Winter Prayers
Dearest Forsaken
Wolves (Song of the Shepherd's Dog)
Someday the Waves
Last Night
What Hurts Worse
Summer Clouds
Monkeys Uptown
About A Bruise
Right for Sky
Waitin’ For A Superman (Flaming Lips)
Naked As We Came
The Trapeze Swinger
Half Moon
Muddy Hymnal
Call It Dreaming
Song In Stone
Woman King
Boy With A Coin
—
Fever Dream
This article appears in Nov 15-22, 2018.