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T H U R S D AY, A U G U S T 3 1 , 2 0 0 6The Magic Numbers At Joe's Pub -- I Was ThereThe Magic Numbers are the greatest rock and roll band in the world.It was 24 hours ago that the Magic Numbers began their second showat Joe's Pub. I've finally calmed down enough to write about it. I almostbegan blogging at two in the morning, but I was afraid I'd writehyperbolic comments like, "I've seen the future of rock and roll and itsname is The Magic Numbers" or some such thing. Now that I'vestopped hyperventilating, I think I can restrain my enthusiasm tosaying something more modest like, "The Magic Numbers are thegreatest rock and roll band in the world."The Magic Numbers are the greatest rock and roll band in the world.Maybe that's the biggest surprise of the show for me: how rock and rollthey really are. The buzz for The Magic Numbers began two years ago --in the British music press, modest praise for a new band that has yet toeven release a single would be, "They're likely to be the most importantgroup since the Smiths, if not the Beatles."But the press for the Numbers was intriguing; not many new bands getcompared to the Mamas & the Papas. Then I heard a gentle, acousticsong on a giveaway CD from Q Magazine. Wonderful, lovely stuff and Imade a note to get their album on import. But the Mamas & The Papastag (while not crazy) was mostly a family thing. Journalists couldn't getover the fact that the band was composed of two sets of siblings, abrother and a sister and another brother and sister. They certainly hadsome cool vocals on the first single and there was a definite Sixties vibeto them.When the album arrived, that gentle acoustic track proved a redherring. This was terrific pop, but not quite what was expected. Ithought of Lovin' Spoonful, the Beach Boys and so on; but none of thecomparisons quite fit and the songs were nicely off-kilter. They'd startin an incredibly catchy manner, stop abruptly and veer away into somequiet ruminative section and then THAT would start to becomeinsistently hypnotic and just as you started to groove to it that wouldstop and the original melody would pop back into view. Five minutetunes were the norm and once you stopped complaining that it wasn'tNext Blog»sal1mineo@hotmail.comSEARCH BLOG FLAG BLOGFOLLOW BLOGP O P S U R F I N G . C O MS U R F I N G T H E WAV E S O F P O P U L A R C U LT U R EB Y M I C H A E L G I LT Z & F R I E N D SPOPSURFING.COM: The Magic Numbers At Joe's Pub -- I Wa...http://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2006/08/magic-numbers-at-joes...
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