Magdalena Bay At Lincoln Hall
Magdalena Bay is the kind of band that completely immerses you into their world when you listen to their music. That being a world that (at least to me) feels like a futuristic yet extremely nostalgic fever dream. The band consists of two people, Mica Tenenbaum (lead singer) and Matthew Lewin (bass, keys, guitar), who in a very spot-on way have described their genre as being “synth pop straight from the simulation.”
I went to see Magdalena Bay perform at Lincoln Hall last month and I will now do my best to explain the whole experience of the show.
As I said before, just listening to the band immerses you into their world… but seeing them live felt like completely falling down the rabbit hole of their reality. My favorite part of the show was the visual aspects of it. They incorporated a mixture of fun lights, props, and videos on a projector above them, which I think helped to express the feeling of their music really well. This was the band's first headline tour, so I was especially impressed by the elaborate setup of it all. Though what's really impressive is that, based on what I read in the band's tour diary, they currently have no manager, so they dealt with setting up all the fancy lights for every show themselves.
Only having two people in a band can sometimes make live shows hard to pull off, since each person can only do so much. I'm also not usually a fan of when bands use backing tracks in live performances, but I think that Magdalena Bay found the perfect balance. They also brought a drummer with them on tour which was a good choice. Throughout the show Matthew switched between bass, guitar, and keys which made each song a little more unique as different instruments were being highlighted. Mica mainly stuck with vocals and had really great stage presence that kept the audience engaged and excited throughout the whole show.
I’d also like to mention some of my personal highlights of the show which included fun matching outfits, a Donnie Darko-esque bunny mask that showed up for one song?, Matthew sleeping and then being a w o k e n, and a melodica solo by Mica.
So if you want to fall into the world of Magdalena Bay go give their music a listen. You can find some of my favorite songs featured on the “Tour Features” playlist I created on the Amplified Chicago Spotify page (linked below). ALSO if you’re looking to get the full experience of seeing Magdalena Bay live you can see them at this year's Pitchfork Music Fest!