It’s a grammarian’s nightmare. In the phrase “iron and wine”, both nouns are of the type known as mass nouns. That is to say, indefinite plurals with no singular. But the phrase is also the stage name for American folkie and songwriter Sam Beam – just him, one guy, sometimes with guest musicians or a stage band backing him up. This is definitely a singular noun situation. So: do you say “Iron & Wine are touring” or “Iron & Wine is touring”? Singular or plural? It’s a question that means I’ll be getting very little sleep for the next few weeks, as I go to see Iron & Wine play the Athenaeum on a balmy early autumn Friday night. This lexical minefield will necessitate some precise prosodic footwork.

However you wish to conjugate him though, his show proves Sam Beam is one of the cuddliest musos going around. The unusually high beard-to-crowd ratio in the milling Athenaeum pre-show throng begins to make sense, as Beam comes on stage sporting a face-rug that would make Chewbacca feel like a bit of a pansy. No half-arsed Jesus beard for Beam, no designer stubble, no goatee, this is a full blooded 1800s lumberjack affair – he looks like the bloke Ned Kelly took out down at Stringybark Creek. Or more congenially, like one of those similarly hirsute peace-and-love types who populated San Fran’s Haight-Ashbury area and the world’s supply of Kombi vans in the early 1970s. Beam’s beard does look like he washes it, though. Anyway, with beard growing into his hair, and hair merging into his woollen sleeveless vest, he gives an impression of softness and furriness which makes me want to curl up on him and sleep. Not in any pseudo-sexual folk-star groupie kind of way, just in a hey-you-look-really-comfy kind of way.
 
Adding to the huggability is the fact that Beam seems to be probably the nicest man alive. He shuffles modestly on stage and greets us with softly-spoken kind words and an endearingly shy smile. The vest, open-collared shirt, and slacks only add to the impression. While he could still secretly be a child-beating alcoholic, based on stage persona alone, Beam joins Jose Gonzalez as a take-home-to-meet-your-mother kind of rock star. Unlike Gonzalez though, Beam engages with his audience and has some interesting things to say (Check Out Geoff's Jose review here).

He starts the night slowly, just he and his vocalist/violinist sister Sarah onstage, individually spot-lit from above, as Beam’s fingers begin to pick out ‘The Trapeze Swinger’. A surprise hit from the soundtrack of In Good Company, this folk epic is one of the more wonderful songs I’ve ever heard. Over its eight-minute course, the lilting tune folds over-and-over itself. Such repetition should be impossible to sustain, but here, the perfect circularity of the tune, the moving strength of the lyrics, and the subtlest of changes in Beam’s playing and singing, mean the song in its entirety works perfectly. For such an ambitious undertaking, this is high praise indeed, and a credit to the songwriter.
Sarah Beam stands casual as you like, her violin holstered, hands in the pockets of her worn blue jeans, as they glide into ‘Jezebel’ from the EP Woman King. Then they start on material from the new album, The Shepherd’s Dog. For ‘Peace Beneath the City’, they add a guitarist, drummer, and percussionist. Beam switches to an electric, and his sister finally pulls out her primary weapon, attached – wait for it – to some kind of wah-wah pedal. There’s some energy to this bracket. First ‘Peace’, then ‘Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car’ transcend folk; these arrangements have balls. ‘Pagan Angel’ also has an enjoyable Simon & Garfunkel strut to it – perhaps Beam’s nod to another band name that incorporates an ampersand? The guitarist switches to a pedal steel for ‘Lovesong of the Buzzard’, a pretty song for a giant creepy avian predator.

The excess band members leave as the two Beam’s try to play ‘Each Coming Night’. The first guitarist has switched full-time to pedal steel, but there’s now a second guitarist as well as a bassist, drums and percussion rounding out the line-up. They launch into the semi-title track ‘Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)’. Beam’s control of his high notes is perfect, and he makes full use of the band with a long, rolling outro jam incorporating some interesting effects on his guitar. There’s a great toe-tapping tempo throughout. The percussionist is a weird magician, pulling out dozens of different shakers, grinders, squeakers and hooters. No, none of these are euphemisms. He uses them very precisely – two shakes of this one, three taps of that.

The quality is top-notch throughout, and the highlights are numerous. The gorgeous ‘Sodom, South Georgia’ is immaculately constructed (and possibly immaculately conceived, it’s that good). For a bit of musicianship show-and-tell, the band tails it off into another extended outro. ‘White Tooth Man’ is a great piece of storytelling with a staccato, hypnotic rhythm. It has much more energy and volume to it performed live than you’d expect from the album. As Iron & Wine wind up, you can tell how much the crowd has loved this show. It was disappointing, though, that after all that noise the band only gave us one extra song.

This was related to the one disappointing aspect of the evening. Yes, it was a great show. The band’s control of their art was thoroughly enjoyable. But the set overall relied a bit too heavily on the new album. Iron & Wine played 11 of the 12 songs from The Shepherd’s Dog, as opposed to just two from Our Endless Numbered Days (including one from the bonus disc), and one from The Creek Drank the Cradle. The difference is that the full band set-up of The Shepherd’s Dog dominates the sound.

Beam has an extraordinary voice and delivery, with so many nuances just in the shift of his tones. At times I wished we could have had more of his voice without the competition. The songs from the earlier albums, just voice and quiet acoustic, give this sound the space to unfold, and I have no doubt his audience would have been receptive.

Of course musicians get tired of old material. But they are also there for their fans. There has to be some give and take. While the songs don’t change, the audiences do, every night. And while a band may have played some songs last tour, for everyone in the crowd who came to that last show there are probably half a dozen that didn’t. Hell, when overseas acts only tour every few years, I’m pretty sure most of us could stand hearing them play the same song twice. We’re not in New York; we can’t see these bands a dozen times a year.

Anyway, it’s a fairly small gripe for what was a top-quality performance from one of the more entrancing musicians of our current generation. And it’s impossible not to like Sam Beam, or Iron & Wine, or whatever you want to call him or them or whatever they are. He’s bringing us wonderful music, in recording and in person. And he’s obviously committed to helping us remember our heritage through his personal grooming. How many other musicians make you think of Stringybark? And in fact, might The Creek Drank the Cradle not be an oblique Kelly reference too? Whatever the case, Sergeant Kennedy can rest easy in his grave knowing that his facial hair tradition is in safe…err…on safe chins.