Jet Ochoa
Jet Ochoa
There’s something inherently surreal about watching internet-pop breathe among the dead. The night Magdalena Bay took over Hollywood Forever Cemetery felt less like a concert and more like a séance for dreamers; an electric gathering where the living and ghosts of imagination coexist for two unbroken hours.
The evening began with a voice so impressive I darted from the taco line. A distorted lead soared through the cemetery air, and then came OXIS. Her crystalline voice on the track “Fry” carried through the wind, dissolving my hunger itself. “Baqui” followed, with vocal chops tumbling over a confident low end paired to kick drums establishing order in the chaos. It’s rare for an opener to light up a crowd before a headliner, but OXIS triumphed with ease.
By the time Magdalena Bay emerged, the night had already embellished imagination. The cemetery’s lawn, glowing with fog, mist, and flickers of screens, became a gateway. The duo had turned the space into an interdimensional cathedral. Panels flared with warped internet imagery, a glowing portal toward stage left like an all-seeing eye. It was maximalist, theatrical, and somehow intimate. The crowd felt invited to this lucid dream.
Mica Tenenbaum moved like both conduit and machine; her voice alternating between tenderness and the synthetic sublime. Short costume changes after stints of tracks punctuated the performance: the shining blue, to the sunflower crown. Nevertheless, don’t ignore the man in red; Matthew Lewin became the pulse. Every instrumental solo felt like a signal breathing through static, with continued notes sending the crowd into ecstasy.
After the lovely run of Imaginal Disk in Los Angeles, everyone would presume the night had concluded. Though, the field drew the highest caliber of fans; countless faces all eagerly present for the hometown show. One fan had been chatting all night, awaiting his favorite track that the duo “probably wouldn’t play.” A few moments later, the stage lights beamed back to life. “Dream Catching” began, and the enthusiast’s hopes had been realized. The moment felt cosmic, Magdalena Bay has a way of making reality feel elastic as they tug at the edges of what a concert can be.
This collaboration, of Mica and Matthew, united the crowd in harmony with a strange recognition that everyone belonged in the same hallucination. No component of their chemistry feels withheld, and the energy reflects across the pairing of vocals to instrumentation.
Arriving at the true end, haze met the stage and Mica’s silhouette danced in front of the mausoleum wall. As her image met a city obsessed with eternity, Magdalena Bay offered something akin: a belief in forever.