On Tuesday night my buddy A-Bomb and I went to the
Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros concert here in Edmonton at the
Edmonton Events Centre. The opening band for the show was
Clap Your Hands And Say Yeah. We caught the last 3 songs of
Clap Your Hands set and have to say I didn't like them at all. We were there to see
Edward Sharpe, as this was the first time for both of us catching this band live.
A-Bomb is the one that got me in to this band about a year ago.
Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros are a 12 piece band from Los Angeles, in which there is no one in the band by the name of Edward Sharpe. I didn't realize how popular this band til I got to the show and realized it was almost sold out, so about 1500 people at the show would be my guess.
Edward Sharpe remind me a lot of another large band called
Polyphonic Spree. Unlike Polyphonic all the members in Magnetic play an instrument. Both these bands almost seem like a cult kind of band, a hippie communal kind of thing. I found
Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros to play an uplifting spiritual style of music. The band is touring for their latest release called Here that came out in May. Although the album is good, their music is way better when it is performed live.
After an hour wait between bands (felt like for fuckin' ever) it was time for
Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros. As the band came out on stage it really hit you how big this band is, it took a while to get all 12 members out, and then the stage looked really small with that many people on it. The band sounded good a few blips here and there which I guess can be expected with that many members. Lead singer
Alex Ebert sounded good even if he does look like he just scraped himself up off a street corner, also
Jade Castrinos who sang both lead and background vocals added a whole other element to the band, she has a beautiful voice, coming off all shy while she sings. I don't know the song titles of their songs all that well but some of the songs I did recognize during their hour and a half set were '
Carries On', '
Fiya Wata', '
One Love To Another', '
Man On Fire', '
I Don't Wanna Pray', and their big single from their last album the second last song of the evening '
Home'.
This was a great show with everyone in to the music big time, lots of small circles of hippies through out the venue doing there hippy dance. I think the best way to see this band would be in an outdoor festival setting. All and all, Good times!!!
