Magic Numbers

el rey theaterI won two tickets to hear Magic Numbers in concert on Tuesday night. How? I entered my name in a raffle at the Citysearch event that I blogged about two posts down. For a second I thought I won tickets to Justin Timberlake's concert which was also in the raffle, but instead I won tix to Magic Numbers. My response was "Magic what?" I had no idea who they were and I was pretty tired that day since I was up at five a.m. that morning flying to San Fran on a seven o'clock flight just to return at three later that day--all for a business meeting. The concert wasn't until eight and my eyes were already drifting asleep on the plane's flight to L.A., but who turns down free tickets, right?

The show was held at the El Rey Theatre near LACMA and La Brea Tar Pitts. The outside marquee was very retro and I learned by the sign that the event was being presented by KCRW (the local LA NPR channel). I groaned after seeing that since I figured I was now in store for some classical music that would surely put me to sleep. I had never been to the El Rey and expected it to be a sit down assigned seating theater but there was a good size line outside and inside was more like a club with a fancy bar, a cafe upstairs and a dance floor and stage in the center. It was really pretty actually with red carpet floors, fun nightclub lights and fancy crystal chandeliers.

The crowd was pretty young and very hipster: guys in artistic shirts with Scottish paper boy caps on, girls with handkerchiefs tying back their hair and quirky framed glasses. A bunch were wearing shirts with the band's South Park-like logo. It was weird seeing fans of the music group, yet we were there not knowing anything about them. 

We ordered some wine and later champagne ($8) in plastic cups and snagged chairs along the left wall. There were two opening acts and intermissions in between. First up were two girls, Ingrid Michaelson with indie-pop songs similar to Lilly Allen's style. I thought I recognized their last song "Keep Breathing," but I figured it just reminded me of something else. Turns out, via some research on their site, the song was featured on the recent season finale of Grey's Anatomy. Bingo! Next came The Little Ones which were very energetic and were like a cross between the Beatles and Modest Mouse. magic numbers in LAThe Magic Numbers meanwhile, are from England (I gathered from their accents) and are comprised of two girls and two guys.  Their music reminded me of The White Stripes and the 60s melody blend of The Mammas and the Pappas. In the end, I was actually really pleased with all the acts and the songs were all stuff that I'd like to listen to again. So, considering we had no idea what we were in for, it was a lot of fun as was the not knowing. 

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