Laura Barrett and the Magnetic Fields forecast a brightly grim future in New York

March 10, 2010, at the Town Hall

By Eleanor Whitney
Published: March 13th, 2010 | 12:00pm

Town Hall is a stately, mature auditorium that almost feels out of place in the midst of Times Square’s bright lights and cheap thrills … and yet it was a grown-up but enthusiastic crowd that filled the hall on a Wednesday night to see the Magnetic Fields.

Toronto’s Laura Barrett started off the evening and wore a flowing dress that made her resemble an otherworldly, futuristic mermaid. Having gained notoriety for using the African thumb piano as her main instrument and also for playing a keyboard with her feet, this time Barrett was accompanied by two musicians playing flute, banjo, and glockenspiel. Laura Barrett’s cheeky, watery folk is in line with contemporaries like Ingrid Michaelson with off-kilter lyrics, but it was her highly original instrumentation that made the musician especially appealing to the Magnetic Fields crowd.

Her voice like an angel that gently announced the apocalypse, Barrett’s sweetly and deftly delivered songs referenced caffeine, carotene, android pets, and misplaced optimism. Introducing the song “Robot Ponies” she explained, “It’s a commercial jingle in the form of a song.” Her comment sounded especially apt since, moments before the show, the Black Eyed Peas had appeared to promote a new 3-D television in nearby Times Square. Perhaps the dystopian future of Laura Barrett’s songs is not as far away as we would like to think.

Soon after Barrett exited, the Magnetic Fields took the stage to an appreciative applause. Front man Stephin Merritt held a ukulele and a cell phone and announced in his characteristic deadpan, “This is a cellular phone, if you have one turn it off.” Then, as he turned toward cellist Sam Davol he announced, “This is a cello. If you have one, don’t play it during the show.”

And with that, the band began their generous, nearly two-hour performance that highlighted songs from every moment of their career, including Merritt and Claudia Gonson’s recordings under the 6ths moniker (“Falling Out of Love (With You).”) With the nearly all-acoustic lineup, save Gonson’s electric keyboard, the songs were delicately orchestrated yet achieved a rich, full tone. The stripped-down set-up, which has been standard at Magnetic Fields concerts in recent years, showcased Merritt’s distinctive baritone and Gonson and Shirley Simms’ clear, soaring voices.

The space between songs was punctuated with the awkward stage banter between Gonson and Merritt that has become signature for the Magnetic Fields and reflects the comfort of the band’s members who have been playing together in one form or another for over fifteen years.

Other songs of the night ranged from brand-new tracks from the band’s latest release Realism (Nonesuch) such as “You Must Be Out of Your Mind,” to the 1995 track “All the Umbrellas in London” which was translated from the synth-drenched track featured on the album to a mature, minimally orchestrated live performance. No one mines romantic misery better than Merritt and this was especially the case on the songs performed from 69 Love Songs (Merge), which drew enthusiastic responses from the audience. One such song was “Acoustic Guitar” which sounded positively plaintive with John Woo’s classically oriented guitar lines and Gonson’s searching vocals.

The encore closed with another much-loved early song, “100,000 Fireflies,” which, for what it lacked in electric punch, made up for with a concentrated lilt and cheerful sounding cello. The concert closed sweetly and enthusiastically and the crowd, who all had to work the next day, went quickly home to bed with heads full of despondent but beloved lullabies.

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Laura Barrett official site

Laura Barrett MySpace page

The Magnetic Fields official site

The Magnetic Fields MySpace page

Nonesuch Records