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"Drawing inspiration from the carnival-like offerings of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue and the execution of performances in The Band's Last Waltz, the two settled on a spirit for the tour. Simply put -- book the show, have the two bands there and ready to go at show time, invite friends down and ask them to come out for a few songs. Give it structure, but don't rob it of any spontaneity.... No one really knows what lies ahead, but we guarantee it will be unlike anything making the rounds this fall."

That was the pitch for last night's Calexico/Iron & Wine affair at the Warfield Theater, the old high-ceilinged house on one of the roughest blocks of Market Street. Although it's a beautiful theater in many ways, I normally don't enjoy seeing shows there. I behave myself at live music events, and I'm not into being frisked at the door and prodded around by people constantly telling me where I can and cannot stand. Plus a portion of my ticket price goes to Clear Channel, whom I don't want to support.

I'm rather happy that security got to the ticket-buyer who tried to physically remove comic Neil Hamburger from the stage, however. It wasn't because I was enjoying his act, exactly, although I have to admit that the cumulative effect of his intentionally awful jokes was starting to build into something approaching amusement. I was much more interested in the open hostility between Hamburger and the crowd of perhaps two thousand people, the vast majority of whom wanted him to get off the stage ASAP. The most exciting part of his vulgar, terrible joke-telling bit was the period when it wasn't clear whether he would remain onstage to continue taking abuse from the crowd, or would cave to their increasingly vocal wishes. Thrown plastic bottles were one thing; the woman who climbed up and went for Neil was another. She apparently got a glass of whiskey in the face and an ejection from the theater prior to the main event.

Calexico's own set was unusual. Anchored by a few of their bread-and-butter pieces -- "Sonic Wind," "Stray," "Crystal Frontier" -- the list included about four new songs and a cover of Love's "Alone Again Or." I've always felt that they were born to play the Love song, but somehow I feel like they've never quite nailed it. (The version on Convict Pool is definitely disappointing.) The new material seems to avoid intentionally the mariachi-rock from the band's earlier records (Black Light, Hot Rail etc), and shoots for a different rhythmic thing -- more folk-rock, perhaps -- that isn't quite so atmospheric. All of it was good, and I'm interested to see how they record the new stuff.

After the Hamburger fiasco, Sam Beam arrived alone to play "Sunset Soon Forgotten" and gradually built his band around him, Stop Making Sense style. My amigo joined him on bass for awhile, then yielded to the eventual repopulation of the stage with Calexico people, one at a time. Beam did "The Trapeze Swinger" by himself to the shocked-out-loud delight of someone in the front row, strummed along with the drummer's chest-shaking thump on "Free Until They Cut Me Down," and eventually found himself fronting the full Calexico band as well as his own group on "He Lays In The Reins," at which point the show finally settled into a real groove.

By this point there were eleven people up there. Reedman Ralph Carney, a veteran of several Tom Waits records, found a place on several songs. The two drummers simplified their cross-rhythms until they sounded like one mind (just like on Jazz Samba), and the three singers up front found the magic harmonies for "Prison on Route 41," "History of Lovers" (though Beam forgot the words to the latter) and all the other fine pieces on the new record.

The blurb said there'd be covers. The last thing I expected to hear was a relative-minor-key version of the Drifters' "Save The Last Dance For Me," but damned if Beam and his sister didn't pull it off. Guest guitarist Mark Kozelek nearly ruined a pretty nice arrangement of "All Tomorrow's Parties," but the piece righted itself with a fiery guitar finish. And eventually, the encore featured a wistful, luminous reading of "Wild Horses," perfectly in step with the tenor of the evening.

I suspect Beam may have to stretch out his subject matter one day. I wonder if he's starting to repeat himself a little bit -- "tell mother not to worry," "father's body," dogs in crisis -- but at the moment I still find his tender songs compelling. (Last time I&W played here, my friend thought "Upward Over The Mountain" was eye-rollingly hokey, but I think he's in the minority on that one.) Just as Calexico may be finding out with its sounds and textures, Beam may need to expand beyond his the niche he's been living in for a few years now. People will always want an artist to say new things. "Trapeze Swinger" is a stunner, but he can't write it twice. You can always work with new musicians, but it's tough to move on to whole new ideas.


FMFM: CTI Records' California Concert. I'm not sure I need Hubert Laws' jazz flute version of "Fire & Rain," but Freddie Hubbard's "Red Clay" (ack! split between Sides One and Two!) and Stanley Turrentine's "Sugar" are rather ass-kicking. George Benson takes some nice turns too.