Magnetic Fields to play Valentine's Day in Boston

How Stephin's been paying the bills since the last MagFields tour

Magnetic Fields
February 14-15, 2008
Somerville Theatre
Tickets available via presale here

It's the kind of show that makes you wish you weren't in love. Because listening to songs like "The Cactus Where Your Heart Used To Be" just aren't the same if you can't actively chug the black, bitter incense that follows Stephin Merritt around like an ever-present cloud of clove-cigarette smoke. If you're really really real, you'll break up with your significant other and then drag them to this, so the two of you can stew in perfect dis-harmony.

Yes, Magnetic Fields' first shows since 2004 are hitting only a half-dozen metros, with pride of place going to the Somerville Theater: the two shows there mark the return of the gravest (with a v) love-song composer of his generation to one of the few places where MagFields performed "69 Love Songs" in its entirety. By the time they show up, there will also be a new Magnetic Fields album, Distortion, out on Nonesuch. And supposedly a new Volvo commercial as well, this one bearing a new Merritt solo tune called "I'm In a Lonely Way," a massive understatement that is already available on iTunes. While "I'm In a Lonely Way" jives with Merritt's well-established weakness for country music, it does so in a way that brings to mind, of all things, Elvis Presley. SF/J wins? [wink, wink]

Magnetic Fields Tour Dates:

Mon & Tues
FEBRUARY 11-12
Iron Horse Music Hall
Northampton, MA

Thursday & Friday
FEBRUARY 14-15 ***
Somerville Theater
Somerville, MA

Friday & Saturday
FEBRUARY 22-23 ***
Town Hall Theatre
New York, NY

Thursday & Friday
FEBRUARY 28-29 ***
The Herbst Theatre
San Francisco, CA

Sunday & Monday
MARCH 2-3 ***
The Henry Fonda Theatre
Los Angeles, CA

Thursday & Friday
MARCH 6-7 ***
Town Hall Seattle
Seattle, WA

Friday, Saturday & Sunday
MARCH 14-16
(Two performances per night -- six shows total)
Old Town School of Folk Music
Chicago, IL