Sam Beam – aka Iron & Wine – returned to Milwaukee Friday night for his first full band gig in town since 2018.
The concert kicked off the tour for Iron & Wine’s seventh studio album. “Light Verse,” released in early May on Sub Pop Records.
After opening night in Brew City at The Pabst Theater, where Iron & Wine played its most recent band concert in the city in 2018, Beam and company will traverse the U.S. and Canada through the end of August – playing nearly 40 dates – before heading to the U.K. and Europe in autumn.
Considering the U.S. leg wraps up at Nashville’s legendary Ryman Auditorium, it feels like an honor that it’s bookended with an appearance at The Pabst Theater.
Iron & Wine’s most recent Milwaukee performance came in November 2021 when Beam made a solo appearance at The Back Room at Colectivo on Prospect, offering an intimate show during which he chatted with the crowd frequently between songs, as he also did on Friday.
(In April, Milwaukee Film Festival screened “Who Can See Forever,” an Iron & Wine documentary.)
But, Beam has said, “I just really remembered what it was like to play music with other people and that camaraderie and just the way those kind of collaborations will make you want to create new things.”
For this tour, those collaborators included Beam’s long-time drummer Beth Goodfellow – who is always so fun to watch – and keyboardist Rob Burger, along with a bassist and two violinists.
Thus, Friday night’s performance was much more akin to his other gigs here in the past.
At the start of the night, Beam pointed out that this was the band’s first-ever show together.
“We’ll play some old tunes, some new tunes,” he said, “and we’ll see how it goes.” He'd reprise that latter phrase a few times during the show.
However, except for a couple rough edges, everything appeared to go rather swimmingly.
For 75 minutes minutes Iron & Wine played a mix of music from “Light Verse,” as well as from across its catalog, which in addition to those seven LPs also includes a number of EPs and lots of other songs on a variety of other releases.
“Old ones” included “Upward Over The Mountain,” “Call It Dreaming,” “Autumn Town Leaves,” “The Truest Stars We Know” and “Mary Anne,” among others.
From the new record, they played “All In Good Time” (which on the new LP features Fiona Apple, who did not appear here on Friday), “Yellow Jacket” and “Anyone’s Game,” to name a few.
A duo called Manual Cinema was also onstage providing the visuals on a backdrop using live shadow puppetry, paper cutting, overhead projectors and handmade animations for a live visual experience that’s unusual these days but recalls the live light shows that used to be a part of concerts in the late ‘60s.
At the close of the evening, Beam said, “well we did it, we played a concert. You guys are a wonderful audience to play our first show to.
“Not horrible at all.”
It was one of a few references to Donald Trump's recent comments calling Milwaukee “a horrible city” in advance of the Republican National Convention here in July.
“Maybe he’s never been here and is relying on second hand information,” Beam quipped.
Oklahoma singer/songwriter Ken Pomeroy opened the show here and will also do so on Saturday in St. Paul before being replaced on the tour by Amythyst Kiah.
With the support of guitarist Dakota McDaniel, the 21-year-old Pomeroy played an eight-song, 40-minute set of country folk with a melancholic tinge.
A great guitar player, with a voice that could rattle the Pabst chandelier, Pomeroy is also a personable storyteller with winning sense of humor that immediately won over the crowd.
Pomeroy’s latest single, with which she closed her set, is from the show “Reservation Dogs,” and it should resonate at the moment with upper Midwest audiences.
It’s called “Cicada.”
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
