Iron & Wine/Calexico - The Forum, London

Confessions upfront – I didn’t catch most of this musical extravaganza – that had Iron & Wine opening, followed by Iron & Wine with Calexico, then an internal, Savador Duran, and Calexico to close it out.

What I did see was the Iron & Wine end of the bill – and it was fantastic. Despite the running order being clearly labelled as a 45 minute set by Iron & Wine, followed by 30 minutes of Iron & Wine with Calexico – there was a lot of inter-band mingling going on – with Calexico’s Paul Niehaus playing some brilliant pedal steel on opener ‘Sodom, South Georgia’. After a couple of sparser songs – including ‘Woman King’ with light backing vocals – the full band gave a much tougher feel to ‘Free Until They Cut Me Down’ and ‘Teeth In The Grass’.

I’m probably a bigger fan of the Iron & Wine and Calexico collaboration “In The Reins” than I am of most of the Iron & Wine catalogue – so it was an incredible treat to hear the band recreate their combination live. Highlight for me was a sprawling ‘Red Dust’. Unfortunately I missed hearing the title track ‘He Lays In Reins’ - performed together with a cover of The Velvet Undergrounds ‘All Tomorrows Parties’ at a show-closing all-in finale several hours later, because I nipped home early so I’d be able to face Monday morning work first thing in the morning.