An amazing show, with an opening band that really blew me away. Great to finally see The Magnetic fields not only play, but put on such an amazing show

I went to go see THE MAGNETIC FIELDS play last night at the Wilshire Ebel Theater with my friends Nancy and Josh. What a spectacular show. The place was really nice too. It is more of a theater with seats, so we got to sit for the show.

The opening band was a guy named Darren Hanlon from Australia. Candle Records, Darren Hanlon with some music to download His set was pretty impressive. He came out played with an acoustic guitar only, and was amazing. It actually reminded me of how I discovered The Mountain Goats as an opening band for Sebadoh around 1994. He was a most pleasant surprise, and after he played their was a huge rush to pick up his album. Actually I picked up his album, his EP and 2 singles. And he has a new album coming out in September. He told a story about a Swedish ship called the Vasa that was built in the 1800′s, the biggest ship they ever built, and it sunk right out of the harbor, and was found again recently, and is in a museum perfectly preserved. You can read about the Vasa here. I also found the actual museum site, though it is in Swedish. This was all to explain one line in the song OPERATOR…. GET ME SWEDEN! Ha. He was hysterical. Another really memorable song was PUNK’S NOT DEAD.

Then The Magnetic Fields played played a most impressive set. They had some wonderful banter, though Stephin Merritt was obviously in a great deal of pain, and was clutching his ear. They completely sold out of T-Shirts, having expected the audience to buy only half as many as they sold. They joked about making us come all the way from silverlake to see the show. The set was fantastic with many songs from I, then quite a few from 69 Love Songs, a couple of earlier songs, and then 2 songs from the Piece of April soundtrack (going to have to see that movie and get the Soundtrack!). They had some really great banter throughout, and it was a phenomenal show.

I hope they come back fairly soon.