The Magnetic Fields played at the Chicago Old Town School of Folk Music on Sunday night. Touring to support their new album Realism, the Fields played their entire set with all acoustic instrumentation. The band managed to play some old favorites (lots of stuff off 69 Love Songs) and about half of the new album. Everything sounded great in the auditorium, and the vocal harmonies really stuck out since the instrumentation was quieter than usual.
This was a sit-down concert, much more like a symphonic performance than a rock show. where everyone was expected to be quiet and listen. There was even a fifteen minute intermission where people went out to purchase lightly salted nuts. A broad mix of people attended the show . There were the expected Hipsters, but also old people who were going to the show because they were Old Town School of Folk Music season ticket holders. The middle-aged man next to me whispered to his wife “I don’t get this. This music isn’t for me” and he left after the band’s first half.
Overall, the Fields put on a show much like their music: initially kind of pretentious, but overall inviting and certainly unique. If you ever get the chance to see them live, do it.
Set One:
Kiss Me like You Mean It
You Must Be out of Your Mind
Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side
We Are Having a Hootenanny
Shipwrecked
Walk a Lonely Road
When Will You Love Me Again?
All I Want to Know
Suddenly a Tidal Wave
I Have the Moon
Looking for Love (In the Hall of Mirrors)
Set Two:
Xylophone
Interlude
The Nun’s Litany
I’m Sorry I Love You
The Little Hebrew Girl
The Flowers She Sent and the Flowers She Said She Sent
You You You You You
Always Already Gone
Fear of Trains
The Dolls’ Tea Party
100,000 Fireflies
Encore:
I Die
From a Sinking Boat
