“Welcome to the 25th anniversary of 69 Love Songs… and the anniversary of Disturbed’s The Sickness,” Stephin Merritt, lead singer of The Magnetic Fields, said in his typical deadpan style. It was the first night of a two-night show where The Magnetic Fields were playing their album in its entirety. Yes, they are playing all 69 songs on this tour, in order.
Each stop on the tour has two shows spread out over two nights. The first night is 35 songs, from “Absolutely Cuckoo” to “Promises of Eternity.” The second night consists of the remaining 34 songs, from “World Love” to “Zebra.” At first, you might think, why two nights? Why not just do it all in one go? But after experiencing the show, you come to realize it’s a wise decision. Three straight hours of love songs would get a little overwhelming, leaving aside the fact that it’s just a lot of songs to play in a single sitting.
What you also come to realize is that these songs really hold up. It helps that the band still sounds great, and they seem to really enjoy singing and playing these songs. I don’t think the smile left synth player Chris Ewen’s face over both nights. Anniversary tours for albums is far from a new concept. I’ve been to at least four in the last year, but this album ends up making the most sense to play in its entirety, since Merritt initially envisioned it to be a musical revue or Broadway show.
In his interview with Cleverock, Merritt told us that the band will practically “throw the arrangements out the window” at the live shows. While there were some songs where that was definitely true, most of the songs were pretty close to their album counterparts. Some were heavily altered, however.
“Love is Like Jazz,” was appropriately changed entirely with improvisational musings. During part of the song, cellist Sam Davol walked off stage and returned holding some small tombstone-like prop he had found backstage above his head. In one hand was also a hammer that he handed to Merritt, who then used it to swing around and lightly tap on his mic stand like an instrument until Davol finally got fed up and decided to take it back from Merritt, eliciting a laugh from the audience. Then vocalist / uke player Shirly Simms walked around the stage, taking puffs from a vape and blowing it around each musician.
Other than that, the band didn’t move much from their seated positions on stage. Merritt would occasionally wiggle in his seat, and Davol would switch positions a bit when not playing, but for 99% of the show, the band stayed seated and dutifully played or sang their parts.
“Punk Rock Love” was another altered version. The lyrics are just “punk rock love” on repeat, but the tempo started much slower, Merrit pretending like he was almost bored singing the lyrics again and again. Then it built, as it does on the album, but in a much longer and bigger way, into a crescendo.
These moments of levity are something the band is known for, particularly Merrit, and were a welcome addition. On night one, for instance, he made a mention of the merch table, and how they had some signed posters that they didn’t sell at the previous show in Toronto. Then, on night two, he made a callback and said they better sell those posters. Without these moments, or the more fun songs, the very nature of so many love songs might start to get a bit dreary, because many of them are inevitably about heartbreak or unrequited feelings in one way or another.
During his introduction to “Washington D.C.,” Merritt talked about how some of the songs’ meanings have evolved over time and how they’ve “dated strangely.” How “songs that seemed like obvious racist or sexist parodies, now seem like ‘wait, what’s going on here?” he explained. “Most of all, there’s this song, which has become the HP Lovecraft version of itself,” he said. They then launched into it, with Simms and Merritt spelling out the letters to Washington D.C. like unenthusiastic cheerleaders. Then Shirly sang the opening line of “Washington D.C. / It’s paradise to me,” with a pained look on her face, the crowd laughing the entire time
As fun as the light-hearted moments were, they wouldn’t work without the more sincere songs, like the arguably most popular song on the album, “Book of Love,” or the remorseful “No One Will Ever Love You.” They make the painful songs that much more impactful.
One highlight of the show was definitely “Yeah. Oh, Yeah,” a tongue-in-cheek duet/call and response between Simms (very capably filling in for Claudia Gonson) and Merritt that plays with the idea of the “oh yeah” refrain, with Simms singing, “Are you out of love with me? / Do I drive you up a tree?” and Merritt responding, “Yeah. Oh, yeah,” each one holding up a glass of whiskey as they sing across the stage to one another.
For as many times you might have listened to the album, hearing the entire thing live makes some songs stand out more, highlighting how great they are. Hearing Merritt sing the lyrics from Grand Canyon, “If I was the Grand Canyon, I’d echo every word you say,” with his deep bass-baritone filling the entire room, just hits differently in person. Follow that with “No One Will Ever Love You,” and then the Simms lead, “If You Don’t Cry,” is such a 1,2,3, punch in the gut.
The album was built to be in conversation with itself, with themes and similar groups of songs, as Merritt mentioned throughout the two shows. There are the “this is like that” songs, the songs about places, the songs about animals, etc. Then, as he said earlier, the songs can evolve and get reexamined, especially on the anniversary. For instance, Merritt explained, they’ve decided that “Sweet Loving Man” is now sung by a cat. The crowd laughed again, probably wondering if he was serious or not.
For a brief moment this review was going to be 69 reasons to go see the magnetic fields. But just the thought of that task seemed daunting, which puts into perspective the task of writing an album consisting of 69 songs and so many good songs, too. Seeing them live just adds another layer of greatness to them. There are so many powerful songs, and watching Merritt look to the ceiling and passionately belt them out, or listening to the harmonies on “My Sentimental Melody,” or guitarist Anthony Kaczynski sing “Promises of Eternity” in a spotlight while the rest of the band is in darkness is such a moving thing to witness, and since there are so many great songs spread throughout the album, it’s definitely worth going to both nights of the show. Otherwise, you might have to wait for the 25-year intermission Merritt joked about at the closing of night two.
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