With the release of The Shepherd's Dog, Iron and Wine has once again provided the perfect soundtrack for those lost at sea with no hope of rescue. Singer/songwriter Sam Beam is as eerie and unexpectedly creepy in his lyrics as ever, and his surprisingly rowdy fan base of college students packed the sold-out Orpheum for what should have been an incredible show.

With lyrics that warrant the listener's undivided attention, Iron and Wine is best suited for a venue with crystal-clear sound, but as any Boston native who has frequented the Orpheum can tell you, the theater's sound ranges from fair at best to complete shit, and Thursday night's show moved inconsistently along that scale throughout the performance. The band opened with "Lovesong of the Buzzard" off the new album, and were immediately overpowered by the pops and crackles of feedback. The bass player frantically motioned in all directions for it to be fixed while the rest of the band played on with a unanimous expression of "Oh crap." After the third song the audience began to respond with random shouts of "We can't hear you!" and "The sound sucks!" That quickly led the way to pleas for air conditioning and song requests from the crowd. The band obviously couldn't discern what the crowd was saying, and seemed to grow increasingly nervous with the uncertainty of the situation. After several pow-wows at the sound board between Orpheum employees and the band's sound man, it did get better but the vocals were muffled and a steady buzz hung over the band throughout the show and eventually people started to leave.

Unfortunately this was the only New England show so the Orpheum was a fan's only option but for Iron and Wine it was worth the risk. To anyone in the crowd it was plain that the problems were not the band's fault and there were some moments of clarity and the musicians' talents shown through. Songs like "House by the Sea," "Resurrection Fern" and "Sodom, South Georgia" all melted seamlessly into jazzy breakdowns and jams that proved a band as folkie and quiet as Iron and Wine can pull out the rock, too.

Beam returned to the stage alone for an acoustic version of "History of Lovers" to encore. His confusion was still apparent, and you could tell he wasn't sure if the audience had been baiting and booing or not. After a false start and forgetting some of the song's lyrics, the crowd responded with applause, acknowledging that despite the Orpheum we still love our Iron and Wine.  

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