The Magnetic Fields Setlist (Oct 14, 2025)

— Set 1 —

Absolutely Cuckoo
I Don’t Believe in the Sun
All My Little Words
A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off
Reno Dakota
I Don’t Want to Get Over You
Come Back From San Francisco
The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side
Let’s Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits
The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be
I Think I Need a New Heart
The Book of Love
Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long
How F**king Romantic
The One You Really Love
Punk Love
Parades Go By
— Set 2 —
Boa Constrictor
A Pretty Girl Is Like…
My Sentimental Melody
Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing
Sweet-Lovin’ Man
The Things We Did and Didn’t Do
Roses
Love Is Like Jazz
When My Boy Walks Down the Street
Time Enough for Rocking When We’re Old
Very Funny
Grand Canyon
No One Will Ever Love You
If You Don’t Cry
You’re My Only Home
(Crazy for You But) Not That Crazy
My Only Friend
Promises of Eternity

The Magnetic Fields Setlist (Oct 15, 2025)

— Set 1 —

World Love
Washington, D.C.
Long-Forgotten Fairytale
Kiss Me Like You Mean It
Papa Was a Rodeo
Epitaph for My Heart
Asleep and Dreaming
The Sun Goes Down and the World Goes Dancing
The Way You Say Good-Night
Abigail, Belle of Kilronan
I Shatter
Underwear
It’s a Crime
Busby Berkeley Dreams
I’m Sorry I Love You
Acoustic Guitar
The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure
— Set 2 —
Love in the Shadows
Bitter Tears
Wi’ Nae Wee Bairn Ye’ll Me Beget
Yeah! Oh, Yeah!
Experimental Music Love
Meaningless
Love Is Like a Bottle of Gin
Queen of the Savages
Blue You
I Can’t Touch You Anymore
Two Kinds of People
How to Say Goodbye
The Night You Can’t Remember
For We Are the King of the Boudoir
Strange Eyes
Xylophone Track
Zebra

The Magnetic Fields have kept a good thing going by taking their 69 Love Songs tour international. This is, if the internet is to be believed, the 100^th to 115^th or so performance of 69 Love Songs in its entirety over two nights. I have now seen three of them. Pretty sure that puts me in the top five, or top two even, for number of shows seen by one person. I fancy myself a bit of an expert now. So, sit back and let me describe the show to you as someone who is practically in the band at this point.

The first time I saw them was over 23 years ago, so I don’t remember the details all that well. I do remember that all of the artists who contributed to the album were there and performed their given songs. The second time was in May (review here), so I remember that one better. The set up between the shows is pretty darn similar. Shirley Simms is set up at her station, stage right, with Chris Ewen on the keyboards pretty directly behind her. Sam Davol is stage center with Anthony Kaczynski behind and to the stage left and finally with Stephin all the way to the stage left at his station. Everyone looks pretty comfy. See pictures below of stage and close-ups of Shirley’s and Stephin’s stations.

You know the drill, they play all 69 songs from 69 Love Songs in order. My observation of the entire performance over two nights as compared to the show in May: obviously it’s very similar, but there are differences – the stage banter (although common themes) but also in the performance of the songs. I appreciate that they are not just trying to give the audience the equivalent of listening to the CDs (yeah, I own it on CD. Vinyl was dead in the late 90s and I’m not hipster enough to try and replace my CD collection with vinyl. I’ll understand if you stop reading now. I appreciate that you even read this far.). I recently had the pleasure of seeing a show with my college roommate with whom I went to a lot of shows in Chicago in the 90s. He opined that bands, when playing live, that are trying to reproduce and not mess up the album version of a given song usually put on a mediocre, at best, show. In contrast, really good performers or shows are when they use the album version as a starting point and just build off of it and make it whatever it’s going to be in that moment at that performance. I wonder how tightly they “run the ship” versus improvising. I’ll have some more thoughts on that below. That’s right, something to look forward to.

I started writing this section as a chronological review, trying to add color and commentary on things that jumped out at me during the show, and it was really boring to write, so I can only imagine how bored the readers who are never going to read this would be. I’ve scrapped that approach and am trying a new tact with just some general thoughts.

I think both Shirley and Stephin are bit under the weather. I say this because Shirley, who was pretty chatty in May, did not say a word (actually she said two words) and was wearing a mask off stage and I noticed Stephin coughing off mic some. Yeah, I know, I’m a modern day Sherlock Holmes. Anyway, if they are/were under the weather, it makes the show all the more impressive because their voices, as in May, were amazing and they brought a lot of energy to their performance – quiet, sitting in a chair energy, but palpable and appreciated. Stephin was his usual chatty self. He has the ability to be funny without saying terribly funny things. It’s a mix of deadpan delivery, his baritone voice, the observations and an audience that adores him and wants him to be funny. Re-reading that it feels a wee bit like a left-handed compliment, which it is not, it’s intended to be a full-on right-handed compliment. It’s not everyone who can pull off what he does.

Night One banter highlights:

After the first song, “Absolutely Cuckoo”, Stephin made the comment “…that Since first our show at Union Chapel a couple of weeks ago, they’ve been to other countries and that in Madrid the audience knew every single fucking word. I hope you’ve studied up.” Either the audience hadn’t studied up, or they were just too polite to sing along. The third option is that I just couldn’t hear the audience singing along because I was in the balcony. Although, during intermission of the second night I wandered down to the main floor and asked a few people if the audience was singing along. They all said that they were but they didn’t think the audience was either. That’s basically what I was doing – singing along to every song, but just to myself. I don’t think the person next to me could hear me (hopefully they couldn’t, otherwise I ruined a lovely show for them).

After “All My Little Words”, Stephin casually in his baritone, deadpan delivery mentioned that his tabletop was rickety. He noted that “sometime between sound check and the show this happened” and showed the audience how wobbly the table top was. He wondered aloud if “…maybe someone will fix it during the break, that is assuming it doesn’t fall apart before then, kind of like… “A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off””. I wonder if someone got yelled at during the break.

Stephin said that there are animal songs and city songs. There have been animals in the news in Portland. Those seem like 69 Love Songs-type animals – cute animals. This lead into “Come Back From San Francisco”.

Right before “I Think I Need a New Heart”, Stephin said “Such tiny numbers on synthesizers now days. I could use a magnifying glass.” He had a similar comment on night two. I appreciated the sentiment – it’s not that we’re getting older, it’s that the numbers are getting smaller.

“Love Is Like Jazz” is one of my least favorite songs on the album. Nine times out of ten I skip it, and the one time I don’t is because for whatever reason I can’t get to the button in order to skip it. However, I really appreciate it live. This performance, in particular, was entertaining. Sam Davol took this opportunity for a mid-concert sandwich followed by ripping up a napkin and putting into a fan resulting in a lot of fun noises. This was followed by Stephin walking around the stage putting his mic in front of each speaker in turn creating a nice feedback. All in all, a fine time.

I forget which song this was before, but something was happening with Shirley and/or her station, which required crew assistance. So, to avoid awkward silence, Tony told Stephin know who let us know that there are a lot of major 7ths on a Black Sabbath album. I don’t think he said which album. Stephin said he hasn’t heard it and he doesn’t believe it. Well done.

Since I know you just reread my review of the May show, I won’t belabor the point too much, but I’m fascinated by how long the singer can hold the final “ride” in “Luckiest Guy On The Lower Eastside”. On the album, Dudley Klute held the note for 17.08 seconds by my stopwatch count just now. I included the whole breath starting with “wanna go for a”. Tony (yeah, I’m calling him Tony since that’s what Stephin did) held it for 14.90 seconds, so ~87% of Dudley’s time. Not bad for a (I’m guessing based on the internet (Holy shit! Tony was a founding member of Figures on a Beach?! I loved their self-titled 1989 album, which I owned on cassette tape. Probably still do in my basement, and Chris was in the band, too?!)) 65-year-old. Adding to the feat is the build-up to that final note. On the album version, Dudley spends 40.52 of the final 43.70 seconds singing out (pretty sure that’s the technical term for it). Whereas, Tony spent 31.00 of the final 42.51 seconds singing. Tony matched, Dudley pretty well on the duration of the notes but spent more time “in recovery” between notes.

Night two banter highlights:

Pretty much as soon as they got on stage, Shirley got up and went back-stage. Stephin informed us that Shirey has gone to watch a puppet show. She returned with some small towels, some of which she gave to Stephin. He referenced The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, saying you can never have too many towels.

“If there is one place you could describe as Hell on earth, it would be the subject of the next song.” Stephin announced to the audience before singing “Washington DC”.

Before “Kiss Me Like You Mean It”, Stephin asked Shirley if she was on mute. To which she replied after taking herself off of mute “I am”. Shirley’s two words for the show. I hope she feels better soon.

“Papa Was a Rodeo” got a really big response from the audience, which is appropriate. It is a hauntingly beautiful song.

“I Shatter” ended with Chris and Sam really jamming out on keyboard and cello, respectively. The sound got bigger and bigger; it was cool.

Like in May, Stephin let us know that after this song, “Zebra”, there will be a 25 year intermission. And then it was over. We cried, we cheered, they bowed and then left the stage.

I am so glad and grateful that I made the trip from Minneapolis to London to see the show. I can’t properly explain what a magical trip it was. There are a lot of really wonderful people in the world. It’s just a shame that the minority who aren’t really wonderful seem to be running the show right now. See you in Miami.