I don’t think I have ever attended a concert this quiet! The masonic lodge is a great and intimate room with the best lighting ever, and it may have been the perfect setting to appreciate Stephin Merritt’s witty songs and deadpan humor. Only accompanied by cellist Sam Davol, he had decided to play his songs so stripped down that his voice was the strongest part of the show.
But before Merritt, Owen Ashworth, aka Advance Base, was opening the evening, and as soon as he started playing I understood why he was opening for Merritt. Behind a synth and a bunch of electronics which could have led us to presume he was about to go much more into electronica than he actually did, he played on a very nostalgic tone, barely singing with his deep voice. I can barely remember any of his lyrics, but there was a song about actress Kitty Winn and another one about his sister’s birthday, totally made up because he said he didn’t have a sister. Whatever, all the songs seemed to thoughtfully express regret, loss, longing, heartbreak, and pain, feelings turning around sadness and melancholia but in the most luminous way. There was indeed something radiant in his keyboard, it was catchy and almost upbeat but also sad like old country songs, and when he called a friend from Vancouver, musician Nicholas Krgovich to help him on vocals and keyboard, the music stayed extremely quiet and stripped down, although I got Perfume Genius in my mind, when Mike Hadreas plays these church-like hymns on piano.
So we were in the right mood for Merritt and his depressive nature, or were we? Nothing can really prepare you for his idiosyncrasy. Merritt is rare on stage these days, a while ago, I had a ticket for Future Bible Heroes, one of his numerous musical projects, and he didn’t show up with the band… since his ear condition, hyperacusis, doesn’t allow him to hear any loud sounds, my guess is that you will only see him perform in this kind of solo, ultra-stripped down setting. ‘Some of you may have noticed that the songs are in alphabetic order,’ he said before singing the bluesy ‘Xylophone Track’, and it was almost the end of the show and I hadn’t paid attention to such thing of course, way too busy to listen,… but I laughed as I had been just reminded about Merritt’s obsession with words and his cute and almost nerdy side. to write his little book, ‘101 Two-Letter Words’, he took all the two-letter words allowed in the Scrabble dictionary and wrote a short poem about each one. So, for this mini-tour which only consists of a few dates, he picked 26 songs among his immense catalog to represent each letter of the alphabet, a daunting task, since beside being the mastermind of the Magnetic Fields, he also created, The 6ths, The Future Bible Heroes, and The Gothic Archies…He gives me the impression to be the most prolific artist around, who probably could compose a song on the spot about the next thing that comes into your mind so why having fun with an alphabetic list? On the spot? As a matter of fact he said he wrote ‘My Husband’s Pied-a-Terre’ while forced to watch the Oprah show with caption in a bar… ‘All the classes mingle there/At my husband’s pied-à-terre/There is not one single chair/In my husband’s pied-à-terre/When I find this loony bin/I am going to do him in’, and I can totally see this in the Oprah show, but then, it makes you wonder what could possibly not inspire him.
During the whole evening, he played his ukulele, sitting on a high stool, singing with his great baritone, which was matching the cello so well during the most poignant moments, but the whole thing stayed so minimal you could hear the guy next to you breathe. I swear it was incredibly quiet and respectful, although there were a lot of laughs, even during the songs, since how can anyone resist to ‘the only girl i’ll ever love is Andrew in drag’ and the infectious chorus which follows?
If you are a Magnetic Fields fan, you know about Merritt’s fetish themes which are always turning around love, sex, and death, so the Masonic Lodge, located inside Hollywood Forever Cemetery had to be the perfect place for him and his music, ‘This is a song about dead people’, he said before playing ‘The Dead Only Quickly’…. ‘And we are surrounded by dead people’, he continued with the same impassive tone, and this was enough to make everyone react with laughter. Just like when he made us notice that ‘Animal House’ was screened outside in the cemetery (they project movies on the wall of a mausoleum each Saturday all summer-long), ‘It’s a Comedy… about American… education…’ All night long, the audience reacted with amusement to each of his witty remarks. ‘I was trying to make a connection between alcohol and love’, he said before ‘Love Is Like a Bottle of Gin’…’At the time I didn’t find it funny. I don’t drink anymore so I find it strange now’… ‘This song is called ‘The World Is a Disco Ball’, it’s not true, it’s a metaphor,’ he continued, and I now realize it is very difficult to transcribe Merritt’s unique dark-humor delivery, but basically everything he said made the public chuckle.
‘Book of Love’ has to be one of my favorite Magnetic Fields’ songs because of its disillusioned lyrics – ‘The book of love is long and boring No one can lift the damn thing’ – but Merritt has reportedly said that ‘Forever and a Day’ was a better one, and he announced it as ‘his science fiction musical he has been writing with Daniel Handler since 1998’. Every time that he seems to embrace all the clichés about love it is another occasion to better surround them with a layer of bitterness and sincerity.
Not all the songs are hits, actually Merritt doesn’t have any hits, but he dug into more obscure material, playing ‘This Little Ukulele’, or ‘The Ugly Little Duck’ (from his Hans Christian Andersen musical) but all the songs were sung with lots of nuances and emotions, emphasizing his amazing low-plunging baritone especially during ‘Josephine’ or the bluesy ‘Xylophone track’
But as much as everyone was enjoying every second of the performance, it is difficult to say if Merritt was enjoying the night himself, does this guy ever crack a smile? He didn’t even do so when he came back for ‘Zombie boy’ in the encore. Z, I was sure it was the last song, but the tune sounded a tad louder than the rest, oh not loud by any means, but it was the most boisterous he had been all night. Still not a smile, I just wonder what could make Stephin Merritt smile.
Setlist
Andrew in Drag
(The Magnetic Fields song)
The Book of Love
(The Magnetic Fields song)
A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off
(The Magnetic Fields song)
The Dead Only Quickly
(The 6ths song)
Epitaph for My Heart
(The Magnetic Fields song)
Forever and a Day
it’s only time
Give Me Back My Dreams
(The 6ths song)
100,000 Fireflies
(The Magnetic Fields song)
I Wish I Had an Evil Twin
(The Magnetic Fields song)
Josephine
(The Magnetic Fields song)
Kiss Me Like You Mean It
(The Magnetic Fields song)
Love Is Like a Bottle of Gin
(The Magnetic Fields song)
My Husband’s Pied-A-Terre
(The Magnetic Fields song)
The Nun’s Litany
(The Magnetic Fields song)
One Long Fairytale
A Pretty Girl Is Like…
(The Magnetic Fields song)
Quick!
(The Magnetic Fields song)
Reno Dakota
(The Magnetic Fields song)
Shipwrecked
(The Gothic Archies song)
This Little Ukulele
The Ugly Little Duck
Very Funny
(The Magnetic Fields song)
The World Is a Disco Ball
(Future Bible Heroes song)
Xylophone Track
(The Magnetic Fields song)
Your Girlfriend’s Face
(The Magnetic Fields song)
Encore:
Zombie Boy
(The Magnetic Fields song)
