Magdalena Bay turned Hollywood Endlessly Cemetery into their psychedelic canvas [Event Review]

There’s one thing fantastically perverse about dancing among the many useless. Because the solar set over Hollywood Endlessly Cemetery, Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin, the alt-pop alchemists behind Magdalena Bay, remodeled the venue’s Fairbanks Garden right into a residing, respiratory portal to a different dimension. The selection of venue felt much less like a reserving choice and extra like a manifesto: in a metropolis constructed on manufactured goals and forgotten stars, Magdalena Bay selected to have fun artwork’s simultaneous mortality and immortality.

The expertise started lengthy earlier than the primary notice. Strolling via the cemetery’s illuminated pathways, previous crypts each grand and intimate, felt like crossing a threshold into the duo’s fastidiously constructed universe.

The grounds supplied pre-show delights that prolonged the duo’s whimsical aesthetic: a face paint tent the place followers may get their faces airbrushed in Tenenbaum’s signature periwinkle hue, a photograph set up with Dr. Seuss-meets-sci-fi props, and the standard merch and refreshment stations. Picnic blankets dotted the garden as followers settled in, many already sporting the blue face paint that might later mirror Mica on stage.

When Magdalena Bay lastly emerged, the staging alone made clear this was no bizarre efficiency. Seussical-inspired set items towered towards a brilliant blue-sky backdrop, creating the phantasm of performing within the clouds. A tv on one facet, a mirror on the opposite – each grew to become portals for psychedelic visuals that developed with every music. Throughout “Tonguetwister,” two animated tongues battled in a boxing ring. It was absurd, pleasant, and fully on-brand.

Picture Credit score: Debi Del Grande

The theatricality prolonged to Tenenbaum herself, who commanded each inch of the elevated stage. She danced round a winged mind prop on the entrance, scaled the set items with abandon, and underwent a number of costume modifications all through the night time—every transformation telling its personal story. For “Vampire within the Nook,” she donned a sunflower cowl and bodily embodied the wilting imagery of the lyrics: “Sorry like a flower that by no means will get any solar / I cling my head down, let the bees do their buzz.”

Picture Credit score: Debi Del Grande

Magdalena Bay delivered a setlist that honored their total discography, from Mercurial World via their newest album Imaginal Disk, plus the only recently launched “Paint Me A Image.” The duo’s dedication to their recorded sound translated seamlessly to the stay setting, with the band bringing spirited power that by no means flagged throughout the two-hour efficiency.

The gang, huge for a two-night stand, knew each phrase. Fingers shot up for “Loss of life & Romance.” Throughout “Chaeri,” Tenenbaum led an interactive call-and-response: “Three, 4, right down to the ground / Lose management / Little extra.”

Picture Credit score: Debi Del Grande

Because the present reached its finale, Tenenbaum’s silhouette danced throughout the mausoleum’s again wall, her actions intertwining with the unseen spirits of Hollywood Endlessly’s everlasting residents. It was a becoming picture for a duo that exists within the liminal house between previous and future, between the digital and the analog, between life and the artwork that outlives us.

In a cemetery the place mortality is the fixed companion, Magdalena Bay proved that some performances transcend their second—that the correct mixture of imaginative and prescient, craft, and fearless creativity can certainly droop time, even when only for one excellent night time among the many tombstones.

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