Wednesday night at the Boulder Theater was a typical Boulder elitist event. The theater was filled with row upon row of seats, equipped with maroon velvet ropes that separated the dinky general admission sections in the back corners from the assigned seating up front. Furthering the snobbishness was the fact that the bar closed during the performance, which only enhanced the stale environment. Yet Stephin Merritt’s Magnetic Fields worked well in the pompous-theatre-like setting, in that two one-hour sets where split up by an intermission. Adding to the theatre milieu was the back and forth bickering of Pianist/vocalist Claudia Gonson and Stephin Merritt, which felt more like a viewing of Albee’s Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolf than a concert. Gonson was relentless in spouting out silly ironies of politics, New York and the film industry, whereas Merritt was much more reserved, only speaking when he had something cunning to spit out. As Gonson drawled on about dogmatic Denmark director Lars Von Trier, Merritt responded, “one of the worst things about touring is that when you want to look something up on IMDb (The Internet Movie Database), you can’t because you’re on stage”. His satirical banter continued with critiques of iPhones and Facebook. The crowd’s response was hilarious and more of Pavlovian conditioning: one mention of the iPhone sent a few yuppies walking to the back of the theatre to check their email on their apple devices.
Merritt’s stage persona composed of dark witticisms flowed flawlessly into his songs of desperation and an American underbelly, which hasn’t been fleshed out since Lou Reed’s sixties and seventies output. Sporting a baseball cap, a guitar which looked more like a lute and a lunch box sized amp atop a bedside table, Merritt’s appearance was so far detached from the emblematic front-man that if it wasn’t for his painfully gorgeous baritone voice (which is even more captivating in person), he wouldn’t have been noticed at all. The Magnetic Fields where much barer than the fuzzed-out sound of their aptly titled album Distortion (2008). With a drumless stage splattered with acoustic guitars and a grand piano, the songs from Distortion were more intimate and lyrically understandable. Merritt’s voice was soft, but clearer than I imagined it to be. Standout tracks from Distortion included “Drive On, Driver” and a beautiful weepy rendition of “Old Fools”, a twisted love song about the desolation of aging. With “California Girls” (also from Distortion), Merritt criticized Californian’s in saying, “they breathe coke and get off like squirrels”. Since the event did take place in plush Boulder, there must have been a few Sorority girls who where uncomfortable in the presence of Merritt’s anti-California ballad.
Though Distortion was highlighted, it was not the only focus. The Magnetic Fields did a bang-up job playing an assortment from their entire career, reaching back to 1994’s Holiday, 1995’s Get Lost, 1999’s 69 Love Songs, and 2004’s i. The pandering to older records may be because the entire Magnetic Fields catalog is being re-released on vinyl, with a 69 Love Songs box-set coming out in 2009.
Besides Boulder’s yuppie vibe, on every other element the concert was nothing short of magnetic. Especially considering Stephin Merritt has said he hates playing live, which has garnished a fabricated reputation that The Magnetic Fields are a dry and futile experience.
Bardos Freedoom
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