The fun-loving hippies that make up Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros are coming to The Shoe. If you like good music and are great at ignoring band politics, you should definitely check ’em out. Just do yourself a favor and don’t land at the barricade.
From the moment the group burst onto the scene in 2009, the band’s “Home” began soundtracking first dances everywhere. The sweetest sentiment from the song — “Home is wherever I’m with you” — can be found cross-stitched, painted or decaled onto seemingly half the items for sale on Etsy. With songs like “Home” and “40 Day Dream,” the band’s frontman, Alex Ebert (no, there isn’t an actual “Edward Sharpe” in the band), his female counterpart, Jade Castrinos, and their rotating cast of backing musicians quickly found adoration among a strange mix of Psychedelic music lovers and folksters alike.
In 2011, the band managed to find itself on one of the most talked about tours of the decade, hopping on a train for Mumford & Sons’ Railroad Revival Tour, and rolled through the Southwest, playing shows at every stop. By the last night of the tour, the band members’ faces were tired, but their energy remained higher than ever. Ebert and Castrinos danced and sang together like the best of friends and the fiercest of possible lovers. When Ebert flung himself from the stage and jumped up against the barricade to sing with his fans, the air was mixed with blissed-out euphoria and sickening B.O. Still, the band was on top of its game.
Somewhere along the way in 2014, something went wrong. Castrinos was no longer in the band and fans were left with very vague explanations (Castrinos wrote on Instagram that she was fired via email, while Ebert has insinuated that the situation was much more complicated). A year later, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros are still touring without one their most magnetic members, leading their Facebook page to light up with fan angst. Just how good can a band be without one of its guiding lights? Guess we’re about to find out.
Tickets/more info here.
