Photos and Review by Emily Gringorten
@emgringo

Magdalena Bay’s Imaginal Mystery Tour kicked off at a sold-out Fillmore in San Francisco on September 3rd, 2024. This spectacularly thought-out show perfectly visualized the theatrics and introspective story behind their newest release Imaginal Disk, which is being met with widespread praise. 

Kumo 99, a hardcore electro duo from LA, kicked off the night with a thrilling set. It’s not often that I see a crowd warm up so heavily to an opening act; between vocalist Ami Komai’s infectious energy and Nate Donmoyer’s glitchy drum and bass breaks, the whole crowd was headbanging in no time. 

Around 9:10 PM, Magdalena Bay took the stage, starting strong with Imaginal Disk’s massive album opener “She Looked Like Me!” Vocalist, writer, and producer Mica Tenenbaum emerged wearing the same blue satin outfit from the “Image” music video. Writer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Matt Lewin accompanied her in a red jumpsuit. The pair’s energy was palpable, especially Tenenbaum as she leapt across the stage with endless energy, blue ribbons fluttering behind. 

Mag Bay has constructed a world around Imaginal Disk centered around an alien called True, which Tenenbaum embodies in the album’s music videos. As the album cover depicts, she is implanted in the head with a disk with the hopes of becoming the optimal version of herself. Eventually, she rejects this disk, forcing her on a journey towards understanding what it means to be human. The band was inspired by the concept of an imaginal disc, a sac-like structure found inside the larva of insects that undergo metamorphosis. After a caterpillar degenerates in a cocoon, imaginal discs are essential to rebuild into a butterfly. The album’s main themes of transition and identity are apparent. 

To convey the album’s story, Mag Bay designed their stage as a 3-dimensional collage of album motifs which the band interacted with frequently. Most noteworthy was a mirror-inspired screen framed by angel wings, with which Tenenbaum sang directly at dreamy distorted images of herself. At center stage, a small staircase allowed her to belt tracks like the epic “Death and Romance” from above the crowd. At stage right, Tenenbaum sought respite in an ornate armchair from which she performed parts of slower tracks like “Fear, Sex”. The witchy pointing hand from the album cover loomed overhead on the backdrop, a reminder of how this tale began. 

The setlist covered every song from Imaginal Disk in order, with a few older tracks such as the fan favorite “Killshot” and “Secrets (Your Fire)” from their 2021 LP Mercurial World spliced in. Tenenbaum also swapped outfits a few more times during the show, donning a fiery red ensemble for “That’s My Floor” (also featured in the music video), and a simplistic angel outfit for “Angel On a Satellite.” After the triumphant album closer “The Ballad of Matt & Mica,” the band exited the stage before re-emerging for a short encore, closing the show with a bang by performing “The Beginning.” 

As a result of genuine authenticity and fearless creativity, Magdalena Bay are quickly becoming one of the most refreshing and interesting acts in pop music today. Though their live performances have always been exciting (I once saw them blow the roof off my tiny college concert venue, shoutout to Northeastern University), this tour marks a bold step toward even more ambitious and meticulously crafted projects, something the band clearly has no problem executing flawlessly. Magdalena Bay’s Imaginal Mystery Tour will continue to snake across the US with mostly sold-out dates, concluding with a handful of European dates this fall.