On September 12, the Los Angeles-based duo, Magdalena Bay, brought the magic of their sophomore full-length album, Imaginal Disk, to The Waiting Room in Omaha, Nebraska, turning the intimate venue into a glittering, otherworldly space. The band’s ongoing Imaginal Mystery Tour combines their highly dense and conceptual visuals together with the band’s increasingly diverse musical palette to actualize the sounds of the already beloved and critically acclaimed record.
The Waiting Room is quite a dark venue to begin with, or at least it always seems that way to me as a frequent visitor for shows; I’ve never truly seen it in the daylight. This perpetual darkness made the imaginative and mystical aspects of the show all the more exciting. It almost felt like attending a play due to the darkness coupled with the highly dramatized visuals and staging. All of these variables allowed for the space to bend at the band’s will. This wasn’t simply watching an up-and-coming act play through their latest material, it was a full-fledged stage production that could translate to an arena-sized venue someday. A band transcends when you lose any concept of where you are while watching them.
Matthew Lewin, Mica Tenenbaum, alongside their touring band, emerged onstage soundtracked to “Crown On the Ground” by Sleigh Bells. I couldn’t think of a more powerful walk-on song. The stage was lit only by a mirror-shaped screen with angel wings projecting the image of an eye during the pre-show, before serving as an essential piece to the visual production, shifting visuals throughout each track. Beginning their performance with the album opener, “She Looked Like Me!,” the anticipation was set high for hearing the rest of these new tracks live, for many, for the first time.
Transitioning from “Killing Time,” to “True Blue Interlude,” to “Image,” this truly felt like an album-centric tour, focused on heightening the feelings created on the conceptual project and adding a new layer to them through the live show component. During the aforementioned interlude, vocalist, Mica Tenenbaum, gave us the first introduction to the tour, reciting the spoken-word lyrics after, “Say hello, it’s you, the purest you!”
Throughout the hour-and-a-half-long set, several costume changes occurred which corresponded with the show’s ever-shifting visuals. During “Vampire in the Corner,” Tenenbaum adorned a yellow sunflower headpiece. Then, for a slew of deep cuts and older tracks, including “Chaeri,” “Killshot,” and “Dreamcatching,” she traded her blue two-piece jumpsuit for a red one, before transitioning into angel wings for the final tracks of the show.
With make-up and costuming echoing back to the looks of Shelly Duvall and the design of 1977’s Suspiria, Tenenbaum’s stage presence was constantly compelling, utilizing the entire stage and levels of the stage. The projected visuals on the angel-winged mirror were both uncanny, yet always somehow familiar, like scenes plucked from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse or other forgotten VHS tapes. Sometimes they felt like educational science videos or early computer animation from the 90s. Other times, they were pieces of Magdalena Bay’s music videos, perfectly synced to the corresponding song being performed. When a graphic resembling the Mercurial World album cover emerged, it ushered in a wave of excitement to hear tracks like “Your Fire” and “Chaeri.”
Closing out the evening with the encore, “The Beginning,” I felt a renewed sense of energy after watching what felt like an electronic opera. I almost felt like I could stay all night and witness the show again.
Magdalena Bay’s ability to transcend venue size and sense of space showcases what a great act the band is and what an impressive trajectory they're on as they grow into their career. I hope I can witness a show in an intimate venue with a roughly 250 person capacity again, but I won’t be surprised if the band surpasses that size of stage when the next time rolls around.
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