XX Merge Night 1 at Cat's Cradle: The Magnetic Fields and The Rosebuds

Here comes part three of our coverage of night one of XX Merge. The next band to take the stage was The Magnetic Fields, who killed during their 40-minute set. The band opened with the song "California Girls" from their latest, non-Merge album before launching into a plethora of amazing songs including "All My Little Words," "The Book of Love" and "Papa Was a Rodeo."

The group even survived an attack by a giant flying insect during "Come Back From San Francisco." The bug made its way from the piano to the cello before disappearing, managing to cause Claudia Gonson to flee her piano and cello player Sam Doval to leap from his seat. Being the professionals they are though, the rest of the band finished the song. Watch a video of the incident on YouTube thanks to user cotafloata. Unfortunately you don't see the initial attack, just Stephin's response to it, but the cello attack is there.

Bugs and all, The Magnetic Fields were phenomenal and the XX Merge crowd got to see the band's only show this year. Check out the set list below.

The Magnetic Fields set list:
California Girls
No One Will Every Love You
I Don't Believe You
All My Little Words
Drive On, Driver
The Book of Love
Come Back From San Francisco
Give Me Back My Dreams
Papa Was a Rodeo
Yeah! Oh, Yeah!
Punk Love

Next up came local Merge superstars The Rosebuds. The band stormed through their 30-minute set, hitting each album and playing with a fury that I've never seen from The Rosebuds. They were joined by Wes Phillips on bass who played some monstrous bass lines that were cool, but were a little too busy at times and were distracting (though that could be because I was right in front of his amp).

The Rosebuds played like their lives depended on it and closed the night with a sing-along of "Nice Fox." The mix of out-of-towners and locals made the sing-along a bit more challenging that usual, but by the end, everyone in the crowd was enthusiastically singing "And it don't mean nothing at all." It was quite nice. Check out the set list below.

The Rosebuds set list (may be one song short):
Drunkards Worst Nightmare
Cemetery Lawn
Leaves Do Fall
Cape Fear
Back To Boston
Life Like
Get Up Get Out
Boxcar
Nice Fox

Check out photos of The Magnetic Fields and The Rosebuds below. Our last post about night one will be up shortly.

[all photos by Kevin Norris]

The Magnetic Fields





The Rosebuds