It's A Wonderful Team-Up

When people talk about “coming together” over the holiday season, few probably envision young hipsters and graying couples attending indie concerts with one another. Both groups, and several generations in between, packed Boston’s Avalon last Wednesday to see Calexico and Iron & Wine, for nearly four hours of music as diverse as its audience.

The demographic disparity within the crowd was highlighted by their diverse reaction to opener Tom Fite’s strange electro-folk-punk-hip-hop stylings: “awesome” to the college student on my left, “wretched” to the middle-aged man on my right.

Their disagreements seemed to disappear once Calexico took the stage; the remainder of the night was filled with stunning music that could be appreciated by almost any group.

Tucson-based Calexico, named after a town on the border between California and Mexico, brought a large piece of their Southwest home to a snowy Boston, opening with a lively rendition of the Spanish-guitar driven “Minas de Cobre.” The effect was only enhanced by projected images of galloping horses and frontman Joey Burns’ appropriately denim-and-flannel attire.

The band is much more than their Southwestern background, however. Their varied set, nearly mostly drawn from their forthcoming album, ranged from latin-tinged country to dissonant indie rock, but consistently connected with an audience that treated even new songs like old favorites.

Calexico’s multiplicity of styles slowly built on one another over the course of the set. The moody but irresistibly melodic pop of “Cruel” blended into the gradually-building rocker “Jesus and Tequila,” which set many heads to rhythmic nodding, before the song erupted in wonderfully-restrained dissonance. Trumpets wailed over Burns’ distorted guitar as he hammered out a passionate, uonison-bend heavy solo.

The band quickly followed with a commendable rendition of Love’s “Alone Again Or,” with bouncy chords and exuberant trumpets exciting the crowd, who eagerly followed Burns’ lead in providing a hand-clap accompaniment.

The explicitly political “All Systems Red” ended with a burst of crash cymbal, driving bass, and squealing guitar, providing a wall of noise that accentuated the frustration of Burns’ lyrics. This somber spirit of protest was countered by an extended version of “Güero Canelo,” featuring high, rolling trumpet solos, Richie Valens-esque guitar, and a dance-happy Spanish tenor named Salvador Duran, ending the set on a lighthearted high.

As Calexico left the stage, Duran remained to sing a short set of Spanish songs backed only by his Flamenco guitar and rhythmic floor stomping. The set was too repetitive to entertain for its entirety, but Duran’s fiery performance nevertheless kept the crowd buzzing.

The buzz quickly became an awed silence once Iron & Wine, the stage name for Florida singer-songwriter Sam Beam, began playing. “Wow, you guys are well-behaved,” he remarked at one point to a crowd mesmerized by Beam’s voice—warm and breathy, yet also strong and present—through slow, melancholy melodies like “Cinder and Smoke”

Beam, who along with artists like Sufjan Stevens and Devendra Banhart is bringing the folk aesthetic to a modern, independent audience, gained widespread attention after his cover of the Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” appeared on the “Garden State” soundtrack. Fittingly enough, he played a set full of inspired reworkings of his own catalog.

A stripped-down, softly finger-picked version of “Southern Anthem” was the best example of the merit of this approach for an audience familiar with his recorded material. Lyrical couplets like “Frozen, the river that baptized you/And the horse died standing up” came to the fore, and his gentle chorus hung over the crowd. Beam’s wordless, falsetto harmonizing with his sister Sarah in the middle of the song was hauntingly beautiful on stage.

“Faded from the Winter” was the most surprising success, as Beam replaced the driving folk guitar of the recorded version with—are those palm-muted power chords? Beam made the unlikely arrangement work somehow, playing the song at a moderate tempo with moody accompaniment from softly driving toms, a violin, and a pedal steel guitar.

Beam’s attempts to reinvigorate his work were valuable experiments even when they fell flat. A full-band, electric version “Jezebel,” one of Beam’s strongest songs, failed to improve on the original. Instead, the quickened tempo and staccato floor tom pounds diluted the song’s.sparse potency.

Beam’s unaccompanied rendition of “The Trapeze Swinger” proved that, while his recent instrumental variation has been fruitful, he remains at his best when performing as an acoustic troubadour. Here his catchy finger-picked guitar, undeniable melody, and poetic lyrics stood unadorned, in a highlight of the set.

Calexico’s reappearance for a final set with Beam was a fitting cap to the night. The two groups faithfully reproduced most of their collaborative “In the Reins” EP, from the dreamy nostalgia of “Sixteen, Maybe Less” to the bluesy groove of “Red Dust.”

“He Lays in the Reins” best encapsulated this cooperative spirit, and the night as a whole. Beam and Burns shared the stage with Duran, two drummers, a bongo player, two trumpets, a pedal steel guitar player, among others. After some initial mixing problems, these diverse elements blended together perfectly.

Good music this varied rarely comes in one package. That it did on this night was a gift to all present, young and old, scenester and stockbrocker alike.