Magdalena Bay09.06.24
Vancouver, BC
This has got to be the first instance of me attending a show for an artist I attribute finding solely to Spotify's Discover Weekly. And that was Magdalena Bay with their track "Neon" all the way back in 2019. Fast forward five years, they've got two impressive studio albums under their belt, and they're playing Vancouver's legendary Commodore Ballroom to support their new record Imaginal Disk! What a time to be alive. This was the only Canadian stop on the tour to boot. Surprising they aren't playing Toronto.
I've never seen such a long line for merch -- it wrapped all the way around the right side of the venue, and I stood in it through the entire opener (Kumo99), eventually bailing out because it was making zero progress.
This show was PACKED, and honestly I think that since it was a Friday night and tickets were cheap, a lot of casuals were in attendance. There was a ton of idle chatter from the crowd during Magdalena Bay's set, which sucked.
Magdalena Bay in general has a cool Y2K aesthetic, and that was definitely apparent with the visuals for their show. Outfit changes were neat. I think the vocals were pretty damn quiet in the mix though, making it hard to hear Mica at times. Loved hearing all the standouts from Imaginal Disk ("Image", "Cry for Me") and some of their older tracks -- particularly the slowed and reverb version of "Killshot".
