Stars with Magnet | 11-03-2007

So Stars really rocks out at their shows. Their albums (under myspace's "melodramatic popular song" genre) have always sounded like somewhat subdued indie rock/pop, so I was surprised by their energy tonight. They started it off with a bang on "Take Me to the Riot," and Campbell's voice sounded really strong. They played most of their new album, In Our Bedroom After the War, and I was a little unsure how I felt about them/the new album, but the show made me a believer. Their style is very cool: each band member (five men, one woman) wore something completely different from the next and they had really exciting stage presence considering their alleged inexperience--at one point, Campbell (co-founder/co-lead vocalist) said that they decided the title of their tour will be called "The 'I can't believe there are so many fucking people here' Tour," haha. Considering there were about 45 people at their last Minnesota show, ten times that is definitely an improvement for this Montreal band. The first few rows also loved how the band would periodically fling countless carnations all over the place (you can see them in Even's photo-->); interesting. Some sound issues still need to be worked out, in my opinion, since half of the time the guitars drowned out Amy Millan's soft vocals. But the encore was excellent, they finished with an amped version of "Calendar Girl," and at the end Campbell was screaming "I'm alive!" at the top of his lungs on and on...that was pretty awesome and the crowd loved it. What a fun show, these guys have a really unique sound. Try out tracks 2 and 5 on their myspace page.


I'm glad I liked Stars, because truthfully I attended the show just to see the opener Magnet. I don't remember exactly how I found this Norwegian singer-songwriter (it may have been off the O.C....) but I've loved his music since his first album, On Your Side, came out in '04, which remains one of my favorite mostly-autumn albums that is heard best while driving or lying somewhere with your headphones on. Most of his songs are completely depressing, so I half-expected him to be the same, but he actually had a fun personality, getting the crowd into his performance and cracking jokes about his ties to J-Lo. Magnet is Even Johansen, and he's so good because his lyrics are emotionally raw, and his music is deep and well-produced. The instrumentation on his albums runs the gamut (guitar-based but with electronic, strings, and percussive infusions), but his voice is what really keeps your attention. That he did tonight, even though it was just him. I'm always impressed with artists who are really good with layering and looping everything themselves, which he did to give his sound a much fuller feel. Seeing him live really made me realize how talented this guy is. He just released his third album, The Simple Life, and you can get it on iTunes.

Magnet's myspace.