The sign above is the sole reason that I haven’t any photos to share with you from last night’s The Magnetic Fields‘ show at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Apryl, Trey, Rachel, Tim and I caught the second of six sold out shows the Fields are performing this weekend at Old Town. And unlike the new album Distortion, the show was a fairly quiet acoustic fare. This was the third time that I’ve seen the Fields (previous times were in Nashville and Los Angeles), and last night was probably the best. Partially because of the venue, but also because of the hilarious banter between drummer/piano player/singer/overall band manager Claudia Gonson and the band’s ringleader, Stephin Merritt.
Stephin was probably in the best mood that I’ve seen him, which really isn’t saying a lot. At one point when Claudia shared some of the band’s past gripes with record companies, she concluded with “we’re a lot happier these days”. Stephin thought about that for a second, and then uttered, “I’m not.” Of course, Stephin wouldn’t be Stephin if he was too happy.
Another funny stage banter came from Claudia when she was trying to buy time while Stephin tuned his guitar. For whatever reason, she started discussing the lack of news about Eliot Spitzer in the past few days. “It was all in the news and now nothing.” Stephin’s response to Claudia was “We’re in Illinois. We’re in Illinois.” John Woo, the lead guitarist for the Fields, gave his own explanation for the lack of recent scandal reporting, “It’s Spring Training.”
Some of the songs that I can recall: Papa Was A Rodeo, Dreams Anymore, The Abandoned Castle of My Soul, Yeah! Oh, Yeah!, This Little Ukulele, California Girls, I Don’t Believe You, The Book of Love, Too Drunk To Dream, Take Ecstasy With Me, Crows, Zombie Boy, The Nun’s Litany, and Three-Way.