fantastic.

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Originally uploaded by clairevoyant paranoia.

the magnetic fields were amazing. stephin merritt was a bit intimidating, seeing as how he walked into the audience after the first song and yelled at some girls who had been talking. he said he would gladly pay the refund of their tickets. yikes. from then on, i kept thinking that at any minute he would get fed up with the bar noise and just walk out. but, he didn't, and he was great. they played many of my favorites, and some new/unfamiliar songs as well. i like it when claudia sings, but there wasn't quite enough of that going on. it was interesting to see that she is the public voice of the group - the person telling most of the stories and engaging in banter with the audience.

the most surprising part of the evening was actually the guy who opened for the them. he is an australian, darren hanlon. he blew me away. he was funny and clever, and had a lovely voice. it was just him and his guitar (and a banjo for one song - that is when he made the joke that he was going to start a banjo band called banjovi that will play only bonjovi songs on banjo.) he sings about bicycle kick-stands, and hiccups, and his love reading the phone book to him, from a-z. he reminded me a bit of the mountain goats, but happier. i encouraged him to go over to new zealand, because i think doug would particularly like him. he said he's never been, and thought that was a bit silly. so, maybe.