The Magnetic Fields @ Lisner Auditorium
The Magnetic Fields are hardly suited to conventional rock performance. Due to a hearing condition called hyperacusis that amplifies sounds to the point of screeching feedback which plagues lead songwriter Stephin Merritt, The Magnetic Fields can't have any percussion onstage. Merritt cringed and plugged his ear at every audience applause and although they have an album called Distortion, they certainly can't use any of it when playing the tunes from that 2008 album. In fact, it was a rare moment during last night's set when all five band members simultaneously played their instruments.
But since The Magnetic Fields' reputation for brilliantly worded and darkly humorous songwriting stands hand in hand with Merritt's reputation for snapping at cell phone users and whispering conversationalists, much of the audience already knew this, and keyboardist Claudia Gonson commented immediately on how well-trained of an audience D.C. was, being so quiet. To be fair, the band's setup with five people sitting in a semi-circle, two of them behind music stands gives a pretty strong non-verbal cue.
Since they played only one show (at Merge Records' 20 year anniversary shindig in Carrboro, NC) in between last night and their previous time at Lisner in October 2008, they were careful not to give repeat viewers the exact same show. In addition to some instrumentation changes (Gonson now plays a keyboard rather than a piano and singer Shirley Simms now plays an autoharp) they only repeated one song from their 2008 show. Even that song, "The Nun's Litany," from Distortion had a singer switch-up. (So, no, they didn't even try to stumble through "Washington DC.") Although having Simms sing the hilarious tune about a nun wanting to get in touch with her overly sexual side didn't get quite as many belly laughs as when Merritt sang it last time around, Simms still excelled in getting the audience to giggle.
However, despite some humorous lyrics, as in the bouncy "Wi' Nae Wee Bairn, Ye'll Me Beget" and "Acoustic Guitar," the funniest moments onstage came from the dust bowl dry banter between Merritt and Gonson. They corrected each other on semantics, made fun of the other for being lonely and generally fought like those sarcastic aunts and uncles who make holidays strangely bearable. Gonson even called out Merritt on the only egregious inclusion in the setlist that night. Whereas most of their picks from last week's Realism fit seamlessly into their set, Gonson said that the only excuse she could think of for the existence of the song "We Are Having a Hootenany" is that "Stephin Merritt moved to LA two years ago."
The songs themselves spanned the majority of their recorded existence and even went into one of Stephin Merritt's side projects, The 6ths. Although there were funny interludes (posted above), their choices from the classic 69 Love Songs such as "The One You Really Love," and "I Don't Want to Get Over You" mirrored the melancholia that spread through most of their set. This was fine until the end of their second fifty minute set when the humidity in Lisner Auditorium rose from unnoticeable to unbearable. After finishing up their two song encore with their only radio hit, "100,000 Fireflies," the audience, some of whom gave the band a standing ovation, seemed as quick to run out into the impending snowpocalypse as the band seemed reluctant to be flying through it.