To elaborate on my post on Brooklyn Vegan (where you can find a nice rundown of the setlist and some really nice concert photos), which I felt compelled to write in defense of Stephin Meritt and Co's honour..... Seeing the Magnetic Fields live, finally, was a treat.
Having been a fan of 69 Love Songs and everything after, I was pretty excited to see them live, but really didn't know what to expect. My guess was that the show would be a demonstration of the contrast between the somewhat out of character wall-of-fuzz-and-haze sound of their last album, Distortion, and their new acoustically oriented release Realism, which are clearly companions.
Brother and sister, if you will. But, alas, no. To my surprise, there were no amps or electric instruments to be found on the stage, so clearly Distortion was off the agenda (too bad, because there are some amazing gem-in-the-rough songs there). The instrumentation that night was limited to viola, acoustic guitar, Stephin's little acoustic (bigger than a ukelele, what do you call it?), a lap steel guitar (maybe) and a little keyboard, but all just barely amplified: so there we were in Town Hall actually hearing human beings singing and playing their instruments. Imagine that in 2010: WHO ELSE DOES THAT!??! Outside of classical, jazz, folk, etc. anyway. I mean, you could hear the pick on the strings, the vibration of the body of the viola, and the timbre of Stephin's one-of-a-kind voice. The set jumped around the MF catalogue, with plenty of gems from 69 Love Songs, and a nice sampling of the new album. You can check out a personal highlight of the evening HERE on YouTube, "I Don't Want To Get Over You", from 69. Its a song that out-Morrisseys Morrissey (my first usage, and hopefully last, of Morrissey's name as a verb). Dark, depressing, obsessive, self-loathing, yet witty = classic MF.
I'm currently reading another of those business books, Blue Ocean Strategies, by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. Basically, its about companies who succeed by making the competition irrelevant: they ignore the "bloody red ocean" of the battle of competition and instead find clear open water, "Blue Oceans", where they find new markets, products, services, etc. for which there is not yet any competition. This often involves redefining the market or the product itself. Magnetic Fields have been in their own kind of Blue Ocean I think for quite awhile now, just kind of existing in their own sphere, doing their own unique thing, and probably not caring a damn what anyone thinks of all of it (or what I might be writing in this blog for that matter). For sure, Stephin and Co. have their influences but they're really in a little category of their own. And for a few hours at Town Hall, none of the other music in the world mattered, at all:
One comment on the aforementioned Brooklyn Vegan post complained about the obnoxious hushed silence at the show. I experienced it differently: the human, intimate performance full of personality, beauty, humor, wit and only slight amplification, commanded the complete attention of the audience who were for the most part as mesmerized as I was at what was going on up on that stage. From the lightest plink and pluck of the instruments to the unrehearsed informal and vague stage banter: we were all taking in a special moment that demanded complete focus: I didn't want to miss any of it. It really wasn't the kind of show where you would want to be chatting with your buddy about whatever as you're swigging your 6th beer (not that there's anything wrong with that, but just not at this show).
One of my personal favorite moments: after having engaged in the technique twice to bring a song to a slowly quietly faded out conclusion, Claudia referred to the band as the master of the "Live Fade", something nobody else does.
At most live shows, the 'real fans' will prove their devotion by singing along even the most obscure lyrics to every song. At this show, there was very little singing along, lest anyone would drown out the band. Instead, everyone would laugh out loud whenever one of the songs got to one of those witty parts. A good example: the reference during Acoustic Guitar, one of several MF love songs to an inanimate object, the guitar:
"Acoustic guitar, if you think I play hard, well you could have belonged to Steve Earle, or Charo or GWAR..."
You kind of have to hear the melody to get the humor...
All in all, I think it's amazing that Magnetic Fields keep doing what they do best and haven't bowed to the pressure of being more "commercial "that must have inevitably followed their success with 69 Love Songs. If they had, they'd probably be gone by now. Lucky for us, Stephin and Co. haven't abandoned their unique vision of good music.
Now, on to the opening act.....
I unfortunately arrived late to catch the last few songs of Laura Barrett's opening set. She's in a little Blue Ocean of her own, though it is probably quite near the Magnetic Fields' ocean. So there she was, up on the stage with just a little string accompanyment, sitting in a chair, in a flowing blue-green dress. She had a little box in her hand, a kalimba. I think she's probably the closest thing to the Eddie Van Halen of kalimba that you'll ever see. I think it's fair to say that she probably has the advantage in the kalimba-music market... but her music does go beyond that. She has a beautiful, round, rich voice for such a wee little thing, and she sings songs that sound kind of vaguely influenced by jazz, folk and other stuff, but sound like the kind of things that come straight out of someone's brain: unadulterated, unfiltered, uncensored words and melodies that go all over the place in a wonderful way. Highly reccommended. Oh yea, and she was nice enough to sneak up behind me at the merch table and thank me for buying her CDs, which she gladly autographed with a nice little message and good penmanship. Her best comment of the night: referring to her kalimba playing as a "real METALFEST" happening up on the stage. I think she's going to go places: Laura Barrett is the real thing, too.
Brother and sister, if you will. But, alas, no. To my surprise, there were no amps or electric instruments to be found on the stage, so clearly Distortion was off the agenda (too bad, because there are some amazing gem-in-the-rough songs there). The instrumentation that night was limited to viola, acoustic guitar, Stephin's little acoustic (bigger than a ukelele, what do you call it?), a lap steel guitar (maybe) and a little keyboard, but all just barely amplified: so there we were in Town Hall actually hearing human beings singing and playing their instruments. Imagine that in 2010: WHO ELSE DOES THAT!??! Outside of classical, jazz, folk, etc. anyway. I mean, you could hear the pick on the strings, the vibration of the body of the viola, and the timbre of Stephin's one-of-a-kind voice. The set jumped around the MF catalogue, with plenty of gems from 69 Love Songs, and a nice sampling of the new album. You can check out a personal highlight of the evening HERE on YouTube, "I Don't Want To Get Over You", from 69. Its a song that out-Morrisseys Morrissey (my first usage, and hopefully last, of Morrissey's name as a verb). Dark, depressing, obsessive, self-loathing, yet witty = classic MF.I'm currently reading another of those business books, Blue Ocean Strategies, by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. Basically, its about companies who succeed by making the competition irrelevant: they ignore the "bloody red ocean" of the battle of competition and instead find clear open water, "Blue Oceans", where they find new markets, products, services, etc. for which there is not yet any competition. This often involves redefining the market or the product itself. Magnetic Fields have been in their own kind of Blue Ocean I think for quite awhile now, just kind of existing in their own sphere, doing their own unique thing, and probably not caring a damn what anyone thinks of all of it (or what I might be writing in this blog for that matter). For sure, Stephin and Co. have their influences but they're really in a little category of their own. And for a few hours at Town Hall, none of the other music in the world mattered, at all:
One comment on the aforementioned Brooklyn Vegan post complained about the obnoxious hushed silence at the show. I experienced it differently: the human, intimate performance full of personality, beauty, humor, wit and only slight amplification, commanded the complete attention of the audience who were for the most part as mesmerized as I was at what was going on up on that stage. From the lightest plink and pluck of the instruments to the unrehearsed informal and vague stage banter: we were all taking in a special moment that demanded complete focus: I didn't want to miss any of it. It really wasn't the kind of show where you would want to be chatting with your buddy about whatever as you're swigging your 6th beer (not that there's anything wrong with that, but just not at this show).
One of my personal favorite moments: after having engaged in the technique twice to bring a song to a slowly quietly faded out conclusion, Claudia referred to the band as the master of the "Live Fade", something nobody else does.
At most live shows, the 'real fans' will prove their devotion by singing along even the most obscure lyrics to every song. At this show, there was very little singing along, lest anyone would drown out the band. Instead, everyone would laugh out loud whenever one of the songs got to one of those witty parts. A good example: the reference during Acoustic Guitar, one of several MF love songs to an inanimate object, the guitar:
"Acoustic guitar, if you think I play hard, well you could have belonged to Steve Earle, or Charo or GWAR..."
You kind of have to hear the melody to get the humor...
All in all, I think it's amazing that Magnetic Fields keep doing what they do best and haven't bowed to the pressure of being more "commercial "that must have inevitably followed their success with 69 Love Songs. If they had, they'd probably be gone by now. Lucky for us, Stephin and Co. haven't abandoned their unique vision of good music.
Now, on to the opening act.....
I unfortunately arrived late to catch the last few songs of Laura Barrett's opening set. She's in a little Blue Ocean of her own, though it is probably quite near the Magnetic Fields' ocean. So there she was, up on the stage with just a little string accompanyment, sitting in a chair, in a flowing blue-green dress. She had a little box in her hand, a kalimba. I think she's probably the closest thing to the Eddie Van Halen of kalimba that you'll ever see. I think it's fair to say that she probably has the advantage in the kalimba-music market... but her music does go beyond that. She has a beautiful, round, rich voice for such a wee little thing, and she sings songs that sound kind of vaguely influenced by jazz, folk and other stuff, but sound like the kind of things that come straight out of someone's brain: unadulterated, unfiltered, uncensored words and melodies that go all over the place in a wonderful way. Highly reccommended. Oh yea, and she was nice enough to sneak up behind me at the merch table and thank me for buying her CDs, which she gladly autographed with a nice little message and good penmanship. Her best comment of the night: referring to her kalimba playing as a "real METALFEST" happening up on the stage. I think she's going to go places: Laura Barrett is the real thing, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment