Califone opened the concert up and had some help from I&W on a song. I like some of their stuff, but they usually go weird-experimental-jazzy half way through it. It throws me off. Still worth lisening to though.
Calexico was next up, and they rocked the house. Great sound from them all, had the crowd moving. Who doesn’t like steel saws and trumpets? Crazy people. Anyone know if the projection stuff was part of the tour, or part of HoB?
Next up came Iron & Wine. There seemed to be a lot of fans in the house, and people enjoyed him. Me? Not so much. I don’t mind his whisper-singing, or the slightly dreary songs, but it was really hard to get into at House of Blues. Standing on concrete for three hours isn’t fun, but Calexico gave me an excuse to move my body. There was little of that from I&W. The bar was noisy. People were actually yelling at people to shut up, or doing the ever popular ‘shhhhh’. Add to this the light machine blinding you every second song and you don’t have a great mix. Had this been an intimate cafe, me with a beer or tea in hand, I suspect I would have enjoyed Iron & Wine a lot more.
So I guess my one word rating would have to be something like this:
Califone – OK.
Calexico – Woo!
I&W – Meh.