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Review: Here We Go Magic at the Parish
The state of the music business right now demands that bands tour and tour and tour in order to make a living. That’s nothing new, but it’s great to hear a band like Here We Go Magic, who really dive into the idea of being a live band and keep improving as they go. The Brooklyn psych-pop group, led by guitarist/lead vocalist/songwriter Luke Temple, has been in Austin a bunch, including a run of shows at last year’s SXSW, when the full group was still relatively new and figuring out their sound. They weren’t bad then, but Wednesday night at the Parish they delivered a set of inspired music that made those older performances sound like demos.
What makes this band as good as they are? It’s kind of simple, but a big part of it seemed to be communication. On stage they had kind of a family band thing going on, constantly looking to one another for cues about what was going to happen and when. On opener “Tunnelvision,” one of their more popular early songs that was once saved for the end of a set, Temple began with a restrained, uncomfortable vocal that melted into something bigger as the rest of the band added mumbly voices to the background. And the Talking Heads funk of “Hibernation” transformed into crazy jam led by keyboardist Kristina Lieberson as Temple turned his back to the audience to face the rest of the band.
Temple and the rest of the band also have a way of keeping things sounding new. Every song seemed to offer a different sound or combination of sounds. A folky turn on one song became a huge drum jam with members of opener the Cavemen joining in on “Only Pieces,” which sounds a little “Graceland”-era Paul Simon on the album, but was much bigger and exciting on stage. The speedy electro-pop of “Collector” strangely had a bit of country rock to i,t and the completely-earned encore “Everything’s Big” glowed with a warm soul feel. As different as the songs were, however, they shared a common energy that emphasized the set as a whole over its pieces.
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