It’s been a minute since our last live music excursion and I’d been sitting on these tickets since October, but finally Monday was the day. And what better way to break the slump than with my favorite live band, Magic City Hippies?
This was our first time at Felton Music Hall, though we’ve driven past it for years, and we’d be happy to go back. Felton is a great little town in the Santa Cruz mountains and I’ll take any excuse to go there! Felton Music Hall is a very cool venue – easy access, nice staff, eclectic patrons and surprisingly great sound. It’s small for a “Hall”, maybe 250 max capacity, but places like that are my absolute favorites for live shows.
The opening band was Supertaste from Brooklyn, NY. I’d only heard one track of theirs previous to the gig and honestly had low expectations, but they were a pretty solid unit. Clearly some guys with some talent and technical skills on their instruments. Overall their sound doesn’t really hit the sweet spot for me, but two of their songs – Power and Supernova – really grabbed me. If you are into dance music made with actual musicians rather than computers and DJs, you can do far worse than giving Supertaste a listen.
For the main event, Magic City Hippies were in OUTSTANDING form. This show was, I believe, the 11th Hippies show I’ve been to and honestly they just keep getting better. I know I haven’t seen everyone, but I’ve been to more than my fair share of live music events and for my money, Magic City Hippies are simply the best live band out there right now. They’ve been touring consistently for a long time now, and it shows. They’re like a well oiled machine, but not in the sense that it is predictable or something. They have a deep catalog by this point to pull from and of course some crowd favorites, but they always seem to change up the arrangements just enough that it always feels fresh. It really is a testament to a solid combination of talent and hard work.
I really can’t say enough about how good these guys are and at the same time I feel like a broken record because I’ve reviewed them (and gushed over them) many times before on this blog.
So I’ll just leave it at that. Catalog the show for my own records and simply say if you love live music, you owe it to yourself to go see Magic City Hippies. Your ears and your soul will thank you!
Thanks for stopping by!
The Boring Old Man 