If Bon Iver’s album, For Emma, Forever Ago, is the product of one man’s introspective exile from human contact and civilization, the band’s live music is something completely different. The songs now take on the hopeful timbre of a man who has digested and embraced the series of sad circumstances that sent him fleeing to a cabin in the cold Wisconsin wilderness. After ending two serious relationships, one personal and the other with his former band, Justin Vernon, the man behind Bon Iver, said that the cabin was the only place he could really go. The songs he crafted there are not complex or remarkable in their structure, and yet, Bon Iver has emerged in 2008 ahead of many other bands with a similar acoustic folk sound.

Perhaps it is Vernon’s voice that separates Bon Iver from their peers. In a live setting, his tenor is just as piercing and beautiful as it is on the album. He pushes his falsetto melodies to the height of a man’s ability, teetering on the edge of cracking but never becoming harsh or grating. He controls it perfectly.