MUSIC: Magnetic Fields / Town Hall
Photo: Chris La Putt
Magnetic Fields / Friday, Feb. 22 / Town Hall
The big question going into Friday night's Magnetic Fields concert at Town Hall was obvious: How will they rise to the challenge of duplicating the distortion-heavy sound of their new album? Simple: They didn't. This was a bit of a disappointment for fans of the fuzzed-out, amped-up, Jesus and Mary Chained jams on “Distortion.” Another shame was the way-too-low volume, especially for those hapless hipsters stuck in the balcony. The Magnetic Fields are so magnificent that their sound should fill the room, and it just didn't. This left many a fan literally on the edge of their seats, straining to hear (or maybe just rapt with adoration).
Of course, the Magnetic Fields' songs are so perfectly poignant, so melancholically melodic, so...luminously literate (I'll stop now) that it seems wrong to quibble. As they wended their way through a set filled with their trademark wryly sad songs, old lyrics sounded new again, and new lyrics were just as hilarious as the old ones. Shirley Simms, perched on a stool dressed in candy-cane stripes, was especially good at playing the songs for laughs, while leader Stephin Merritt, in somber browns, took on his usual role of the good-natured curmudgeon, expressing ironic awe of all the tiny glowing rectangles waving in the crowd.
Pianist/singer Claudia Gonson provided an opening for a frustrated audience member with the telling of a story involving seeing a rock show in Boston in her younger days. "When music is loud enough, it's really comforting," she explained, with Merritt joking, "Kind of like this show," before a fan piped up: "You should turn this song up then!" The reply: the gentle acoustic picking of "3-Way." Ah, well. The distortion-laced new songs could have benefited from a little extra muscle ("Too Drunk to Dream" was saved only by Merritt's loose delivery), with many of them suffering from an excess of restraint in the sparse arrangements. In fact, one could argue that the audience was even more enthusiastic than the band, breaking out in thunderous applause and hearty laughter with just about every song. But truly, the band are such pros and the songs so masterful at heart that these magnetic gems shine on their own, even without the sonic fuzz. —Catherine Hopkinson