|
Setlist
Tour Dates
06/29 - Kansas City, KS - Kanrocksas
07/27 - Floyd, VA - Floydfest 08/01 - Las Vegas, NV - Cosmopolitan 08/04 - Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl 08/17 - Sterling Heights, MI - Mo Pop Festival 08/23 - Simcoe, ON - Gentleman of the Road* 08/29 - Kennett Square, PA - Longwood 08/30 - Troy, OH - Troy Memorial* 09/01 - Aspen, CO - Snowmass 09/06 - Guthrie, OK - Cottonwood Flats * 09/07-09/08 - St. Louis, MO - Loufest 09/13 - St. Augustine, FL - Francis Field* 09/27 - 9/28 - Southern Ground Music Festival Read More Here is another super popular group: Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros.
I previously covered them when they played here last year at the Cabooze. The band is returning to the Cabooze this June 25th. Expect the show to sell out.…
|
On the evening of June 25th, even the temperamental Minnesota weather smiled upon the outdoor stage at Cabooze, where Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros performed their particular brand of stagecraft. It was part medicine show, part religious revival, part hootenanny, and part lovefest, attended by young, old and all ages in-between.
The ratio of available space per audience member was mirrored on stage, where I counted no less than 12 Magnetic Zeros, each busily doing his or her bit to magnetize a crowd that had already been drawn to the concert by the band’s irresistible siren song of all-inclusive musical enchantment. The variegated ensemble has been described with words like communal, hippyish, bacchanalian, mesmerizing, and well, you get the picture. And while some may describe Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros as the love child of Bon Iver and the Grateful Dead, and label their music as cultish, evangelical, flower-pop cultivated in Kumbaya country, such descriptions and comparisons are ultimately as lazy as the armchair critics who issue them, rather than joining the throng in front of the stage and experiencing firsthand what constitutes this band’s undeniable appeal. Which is where I was that night at Cabooze, where I watched teenage girls swooning, middle-agers toking, and seniors swaying to the jingly melodies, transcendent harmonies, instrumental salvos, and crowd singalongs that were just a few of the forms in which this band’s particular chi expressed itself. Other forms were whistling, clapping, rapping and preaching. You can label them a throwback to the psychedelic era or a preeminent specimen of the so-called neo-folk movement, but whatever they are, they attract an audience who accepts them as heartily as the band welcomes them, and who finds in this ragtag band of love-pushers an outlet for expressing their own chi and blissing out for a couple of hours under a tranquil (and much appreciated) Minneapolis sky. Late in the show, when lead vocalist Jade Castrinos invited audience members to embrace their neighbors, most happily complied. It was that kind of event.
The charismatic leader of the band, Alex Ebert, swayed, pranced and frolicked to the crowd’s delight, and minutes into the show had already made his way into their midst, where he took an audience member’s phone camera, evidently set to video, and held it up, slowly rotating it a full 360 degrees to record those on the stage as well as those facing it. Like many a band’s (or other organization’s) front person, Ebert has a charisma that is difficult to explain yet impossible to deny. Observed firsthand, he is not especially good looking, certainly not a spiffy dresser, and does not exactly appear jubilant when performing. In fact, he often wears a rather blasé expression, and perhaps this was just roadwear, but I have watched numerous recorded performances and he is always more or less the same. Assuming a blasé attitude while professing love and acceptance for all clearly works for him, and for the band.
The band’s nearly two hour set began with the popular Man on Fire, with the crowd favorite, Home, reserved for late in the show. In this song and others, the vocal duets performed by Ebert and Castrinos hold an undeniable popular appeal, as does Castrinos’ palpable love of music, which clearly runs in her blood and renders her incapable of ever holding perfectly still. Her joyful spirit and perpetual motion had no small influence on the audience, where very few unsmiling faces or immobile bodies could be observed. If this band’s admirers are spellbound by Ebert’s mysterious charisma, they are likewise smitten by the petite Castrinos: with her pixyish features, complete with mischievous grin and endearing dimples, she drew great applause and loud cheers each time she stepped into the foreground and festooned her clear-voiced melodies over the crowd.
The ratio of available space per audience member was mirrored on stage, where I counted no less than 12 Magnetic Zeros, each busily doing his or her bit to magnetize a crowd that had already been drawn to the concert by the band’s irresistible siren song of all-inclusive musical enchantment. The variegated ensemble has been described with words like communal, hippyish, bacchanalian, mesmerizing, and well, you get the picture. And while some may describe Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros as the love child of Bon Iver and the Grateful Dead, and label their music as cultish, evangelical, flower-pop cultivated in Kumbaya country, such descriptions and comparisons are ultimately as lazy as the armchair critics who issue them, rather than joining the throng in front of the stage and experiencing firsthand what constitutes this band’s undeniable appeal. Which is where I was that night at Cabooze, where I watched teenage girls swooning, middle-agers toking, and seniors swaying to the jingly melodies, transcendent harmonies, instrumental salvos, and crowd singalongs that were just a few of the forms in which this band’s particular chi expressed itself. Other forms were whistling, clapping, rapping and preaching. You can label them a throwback to the psychedelic era or a preeminent specimen of the so-called neo-folk movement, but whatever they are, they attract an audience who accepts them as heartily as the band welcomes them, and who finds in this ragtag band of love-pushers an outlet for expressing their own chi and blissing out for a couple of hours under a tranquil (and much appreciated) Minneapolis sky. Late in the show, when lead vocalist Jade Castrinos invited audience members to embrace their neighbors, most happily complied. It was that kind of event.
The charismatic leader of the band, Alex Ebert, swayed, pranced and frolicked to the crowd’s delight, and minutes into the show had already made his way into their midst, where he took an audience member’s phone camera, evidently set to video, and held it up, slowly rotating it a full 360 degrees to record those on the stage as well as those facing it. Like many a band’s (or other organization’s) front person, Ebert has a charisma that is difficult to explain yet impossible to deny. Observed firsthand, he is not especially good looking, certainly not a spiffy dresser, and does not exactly appear jubilant when performing. In fact, he often wears a rather blasé expression, and perhaps this was just roadwear, but I have watched numerous recorded performances and he is always more or less the same. Assuming a blasé attitude while professing love and acceptance for all clearly works for him, and for the band.
The band’s nearly two hour set began with the popular Man on Fire, with the crowd favorite, Home, reserved for late in the show. In this song and others, the vocal duets performed by Ebert and Castrinos hold an undeniable popular appeal, as does Castrinos’ palpable love of music, which clearly runs in her blood and renders her incapable of ever holding perfectly still. Her joyful spirit and perpetual motion had no small influence on the audience, where very few unsmiling faces or immobile bodies could be observed. If this band’s admirers are spellbound by Ebert’s mysterious charisma, they are likewise smitten by the petite Castrinos: with her pixyish features, complete with mischievous grin and endearing dimples, she drew great applause and loud cheers each time she stepped into the foreground and festooned her clear-voiced melodies over the crowd.
the band is a democratic and symbiotic musical model
For those who are interested, the instruments contributing to the show included two acoustic guitars, one electric guitar, one banjo, one upright bass played with bow, trumpet, tuba and tambourine, two keyboards, one accordion, one percussion section comprising two drummers and a percussionist, two main vocalists, and contributing vocals by all. But an instrument inventory is but a poor means of conjuring a musical performance. Some may favor concert reviews that convey only the facts surrounding a performance, but such reviews can be likened to displaying a fine musical instrument without sharing the sounds it can produce. Certainly Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros is not a band for aspiring soloists or would-be guitar heroes; instead, the band is a democratic and symbiotic musical model whose individual parts defer to the whole. And yet, these players together succeed in producing some transcendent and memorable musical phenomena. I have mentioned the appeal of the Ebert/Castrinos duet moments—and yes, this sort of thing has been done and seen often enough, but somehow, when done effectively, it always has a way of charming audiences. What this reviewer most enjoyed, however, were the remarkable moments when the many voices onstage united to construct a wall of rich harmony for the lone voice of Castrinos to then gracefully scale and smoothly saunter upon. At moments such as these, I felt not only that the group’s synergy succeeded in catapulting them to the level of the sublime, but also that never had a bunch of zeros added up to so much or been more magnetic.
|
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros at Cabooze, Minneapolis (06/25/13) |
Comments