Weaving the brief songs from “Quickies” made it seem like a marathon show on paper — 27 songs! The brevity of things like “Castles of America,” with which they began the evening, also had the effect of making perfectly average length favorites like “I Don’t Believe in the Sun” (from the 1999 “69 Love Songs”) start to overstay its welcome by comparison.
Except for songs so short they seemed blurted out, like “Death Pact (Let’s Make A),” which is all of 17 seconds on the record, the length problem seemed to even out after a while, with the more well-realized “Quickies” numbers like “Come, Life, Shaker Life!” fitting in with beloved reprisals of some of the “69 Love Songs,” whose selections dominated (Yes, they’re more than 20 years old; no, they don’t get heard enough).
The show balanced a handful of selections from that, the new one and “50 Song Memoir” with representations from three other Magnetic Fields albums and one from one of their other bands, The Sixths.
By now, The Magnetic Fields are a kind of chamber folk band, with no electric instruments (save for Simms’ odd occasional oscillations on the Omnichord).
Davol adds a yearning undertow on cello; Gonson giving a tasty pop framework to most tunes on piano; Simms hanging tight to ukulele, while Merritt switches between guitar or uke. The latter he showcased in his single solo spot, during the encore, playing “This Little Ukulele” that he wrote for the 2000 indie film “Eban and Charley.”
Merritt also played some lap guitar and he pulled out a kazoo. But the show didn’t have the kaleidoscopic instrumental versatility of past performances.
Indeed, he stuck to the same set list he’s been using the whole tour, adhering to the big, lit-up songbook he flipped through in front of him, not even altering it for fans who might attend more than one night in a city.
Merritt’s deep baritone is a main attraction to his work, though it’s good to have the contrast of the female voices taking lead when they do. He writes in such a low register, his songs haven’t been covered as much as they should have been over the years, though a Peter Gabriel version of “The Book of Love” that’s been used in at least a couple of movie soundtracks, has lately become a kind of go-to showcase for singing contestants on European competitions like “Holland’s Got Talent” or the kids version of “The Voice” in Germany.
The gorgeous song holds up to all that, but as if to move from the sublime to the ridiculous, they followed it live with the new ditty “The Biggest Tits in History.” The mix of songs with lovely melody and honest sentiment alongside a grabbag of brash, amusing rhymes is the business of the band and they do it very well.
The one song they said they were most anxious to play in Washington was the darkly celebratory “The Day the Politicians Died” which followed Merritt’s guiding principles of droll misanthropy.
It’s part of his schtick. When Gonson, who plays the amiable spokeswoman for the band half the time, answered “We love you too!” to a grateful fan at the end, Merritt shot her a look, “no!” If only to keep in character with the final song “I Need a New Heart:” “The words you want to hear / you will never hear from me.”
He never explained the ladder either.
Opening the show solo, Christian Lee Hutson of Los Angeles, had his own array of quirky songs with interesting details. Using a fierce fingerpicking technique, the associate of stars like Phoebe Bridgers, Conor Oberst and Lucy Dacus, had his own weird Southern California style that caught the audience in rapt attention.
The setlist for The Magnetic Fields Friday was:
- “Castles of America”
- “I Don’t Believe in the Sun”
- “Come, Life, Shaker Life!”
- “Come Back from San Francisco”
- “Born on a Train”
- “Andrew in Drag”
- “A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off”
- “Smoke and Mirrors”
- “Quick!”
- “The Day the Politicians Died”
- “’69 Judy Garland”
- “The Book of Love”
- “The Biggest Tits in History”
- “Death Pact (Let’s Make A)”
- “I’m Sorry I Love You”
- “’01 Have You Seen It in the Snow?”
- “Kiss Me Like You Mean It”
- “’66 Wonder Where I’m From”
- “I Don’t Want to Get Over You”
- “My Stupid Boyfriend”
- “It’s Only Time”
- “The Horrible Party”
- “Papa Was a Rodeo”
- “’71 I Think I’ll Make Another World”
- “Give Me Back My Dreams”
- “’14 I Wish I Had Pictures”
- “This Little Ukulele”
- “I Think I Need a New Heart”