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Written by DCist contributor Dave Weigel

The Magnetic Fields have a song called “Washington, D.C.” It’s not actually about Washington, per se. The city is a collection of incidental, touristy, democratic details, and what makes it important to vocalist Claudia Gonson is that it’s “where my baby lives, that’s all.” So it’s fitting that the band put the song together as an afterthought. Gonson walked on the stage for an encore, promised the audience an a cappella version, and got interrupted by the arrival of the rest of the band.

”I told them I would sing ‘Washington, D.C.!’” Gonson said, laughing. “And then you came out!”

”I can’t hear you,” said Merritt. He really couldn’t. He has hyperacusis and plugs his ears to block out loud noise.

The two founders of the Magnetic Fields looked at each other, unblinking. Gonson made her move. “I’ll sing the first verse.” She played it haltingly, hitting her notes on the piano as if she was tutoring an especially rhythmic and invisible pupil.

”If we knew we’d be in Washington,” said Merritt, “we probably would have rehearsed that song.”

That was Sunday’s Magnetic Fields show at Lisner Auditorium. Gonson, game and funny, told stories and joked about the origins of the band’s songs. Merritt, looking as gnomish as one can without hobbit DNA, grimaced and cradled his bouzouki. “More anecdotes!” he snarked when Gonson told a story about the band’s lost luggage. He started to explain how the song “California Girls” began with a misunderstanding at a Jefferson Airplane show, and a heckler yelled out “Not Starship?”

”No, dear,” said Gonson.

”Security!” said Merritt. He was kidding, sort of, but he seemed to be longing for the audience to find refuge beyond some sound-proof glass.

The audience couldn’t have enjoyed it all more. This is city of hipsters who don’t dance; here is a band that plays to hipsters in seated auditoriums. (“The theater circuit,” as Gonson called it.) The band was matched perfectly by opener Shugo Tokumaru, a 27-year old folk-pop phenom from Tokyo who sounds like an embryonic Sufjan Stevens. At 8 p.m., Tokumaru clambered up onto a stool, barefoot, and started picking out the first of a dozen intricate, pretty melodies. His drummer and two mutli-instrumentalists played softly through songs that ranged from McCartney-ish pop to 12-bar blues, never sounding more dangerous than a band of Disney animals might sound if they decided to pursue careers in indie rock. Tokumaru won the room over easily; he was just what the family therapist ordered.

And Tokumaru, at his poppiest, was more boisterous than the main act. Washington, D.C. was the last stop on the band’s tour for Distortion, an album Merritt recorded in tribute to the Jesus and Mary Chain. On the record, every instrument—guitar, accordion, piano—is slathered in gunky feedback. Live, the band is stripped down to Gonson’s piano, Merritt’s bouzouki, Sam Davol’s cello, John Woo’s guitar, and the occasional lead and harmony vocals of Shirley Simms. The Distortion songs were scrubbed clean and turned into alternately silly and haunting chamber music. “The Nun’s Litany” morphed from surf music into a sad, cello-driven lament from a chaste woman who dreams of letting loose. “Old Fools”, plenty beautiful in its studio form, became as mournful as the old Fields standard “Papa Was a Rodeo”.

That song, and the handful of Fields songs not from Distortion or side projects, were played on a sliding scale. Spare songs became incredibly spare. “The Book of Love” (now, horrifyingly, a selection on iTunes’ “Indie Wedding” playlist) was stripped down to bouzouki and Woo’s slide guitar. “Take Ecstacy With Me” was handed from Merritt to Gonson, who wrung all the heartbreak out of the lyrics as Davol sawed away on his cello.

Merritt’s misery aside, the show never stayed dark for two songs in a row. It ended with real joy when Merritt and Gonson uncorked “Yeah! Oh, Yeah!”, an ironic anti-love song (“Are you reaching for your life? Could you really kill your wife!”) that he sang in a James Cagney voice and she sang dancing around the stage in what she called “Edward Gorey or Jules Feiffer” contortions. There was sarcasm, sure, and there was some kind of cloud over the frontman, but a lot of that is artiface. This is happy music by and for miserable people.

”We’re very happy to be in Washington,” said Gonson as the show wrapped up.

“We’re especially happy,” said Merriit, “not to be in Philadelphia.”