2025 has been a busy year for folk supergroup I’m With Her. The three principals – Aoife O’Donovan, Sarah Jarosz and Sara Watkins released their second album “Wild And Clear And Blue” on 9th May. Its release was followed by a short run of European launch shows include a memorable evening at the Barbican in London on 29th May.
The band toured extensively for the rest of the year, and this writer was delighted to catch a performance in California in early October. During the summer they and Iron & Wine co-headlined their “Robin’s Egg Tour”. One of the stops on the tour was at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, PA on 24th July 2025. In October, they released an EP on Bandcamp, the first of their “Songs From The Stage” series featuring three songs from that concert: ‘Overland’, ‘Call My Name’, and ‘Flightless Bird, American Mouth’.
Videos of all three songs can be found on YouTube, but this piece is focused on the first of the songs on the EP, ‘Overland’. The song was on I’m With Her’s debut album “See You Around” (2018) and has always been a personal favourite. The sweep of the lyric and its evocation of an earlier age delivered in Sara Watkins’ expressive vocal transport the listener. In this version, the harmonies in the chorus, supplemented by Sam Beam’s warm part, wrap around the melody beautifully. If that wasn’t enough, Watkins’ fiddle solo boosts the performance to an even higher level.
The EP is one of my most played on the iPod this year and you can find the Bandcamp link here.
