Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros at The Greek Theater

Show: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

Venue: Greek Theater- Los Angeles, CA

Date: 5/4/12

Show #29

It was opening night at The Greek Theater in LA, and I was so excited to be seeing Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. You couldn't have asked for better weather on that Friday night either. To top off the pre-show excitement, I scored the coveted front of the line parking spot for stacked parking, meaning I wasn't going to have to wait an hour for cars around me to leave after the show in order to pull out. High fives all around!

I had seen Edward Sharpe once before, on the Railroad Revival Tour with Mumford and Sons last year and they were so great, I had to see them again. In case you're not familiar with them, you may know their hit song "Home".

They look like a bunch of vagabonds who fell off a train somewhere in another era, and I love them for that. Edward Sharpe is a messianic figure of the imagination of lead singer Alex Ebert who according to Alex, "was sent down to Earth to kinda heal and save mankind...but he kept getting distracted by girls and falling in love." That pretty much sums up the persona of the band right there.

Opening the show was actually a former member of the 10+ piece band of Edward Sharpe, Aaron Embry. Given he was part of the band, I thought "He must be good!". Right? Wrong. As you may have noticed, I can usually find a bright side of just about any artist and find a way to enjoy myself, but I really really struggled with Aaron. The purpose of an opening act is to get the crowd warmed up and ready to go for the headliner, and Aaron more just put them to sleep, and just made them feel sorry for him. You needed a chainsaw to cut through the awkwardness in the air when he was on stage.

(Photo credit: Rozette Diaz of Restless Cities)

He seemed visibly nervous and unsure of himself. It was also just him, and no backup band. Just him and a guitar. There are few even well established artists that can pull off the solo, acoustic, singer/songwriter act at such a big, historic venue such as The Greek, so for a new act like Aaron, I think it was just a poor choice to throw him up there. Once that train wreck was over, it was time for the main event!

As I mentioned before, the one other time I saw these guys was on The Railroad Revival Tour, which if you're not familiar with that tour, it was one giant party on stage at all times, and SO much fun. So going into this show, that's what I had expected. This show was unfortunately a little slower paced than that one. Still good, I guess I just had some high expectations of the show that were not met.

(Photo Credit: Black Vinyl Magazine)

I think it was a the cadence of the show that made it weird. Alex at one point said that they had no set list for that night, they were winging it. Which if I were to be told that beforehand I would have thought "That's awesome!". But instead it just made for long drawn out moments of silence to give time for discussion after each song to figure out what they wanted to play, which then took setup in order to get the appropriate instruments in place. If they had written out a set list, I think they could have gotten at least 5 or 6 more songs in, that's how big the gaps were. It really interrupts the flow of the show when that happens. A great song will finish and you just wanted it to keep going, but instead it was talking, random banter, and stagehands running around.

One of the best moments was when Alex jumped off the stage to dance with his mother:

Wow this is getting long. Ok so in summary, I'd still suggest you see them live if you've never had the chance. Here are a few videos from the show that I recorded:

Fiya Wata

That's What's Up

Mayla

(Written about Aaron Embry's Daughter, Mayla)

Their latest album Here, is out now!