Magdalena Bay

For many years, Magdalena Bay had all the ingredients of being the best band that only you’d heard of. Quirky, well-made, arty music videos with their own unique brand of synth-pop to accompany them. Luckily, with 3,500 fans in a sold-out Manchester Apollo singing back almost every word of 2024’s ‘Imaginal Disk’ album played in its entirety, people have started to take notice. 

The show kicked off with the opening stretch from that album, with ‘Image’ being the first big crowd-mover of the night; the big synth drop towards the end sounding incredible backed by their live band, with drummer Nick Villa impressing particularly. 

I saw this tour back in the summer at Leeds Academy and left the show satisfied. While being a continuation of the same tour, the Manchester date was a big step-up. Bigger stage elements including a full-size mirror screen and an area set-up like an interior wall of a house complete with interactive window, alongside a clear increased lighting setup that fleshed out and fully realised the concepts of the album. 

Tracks like ‘That’s My Floor’ and ‘Tonguetwister’ benefitted especially, with the former descending into almost rave-like blue lasers before exploding again with the final drop, Mica jumping off the red steps that formed the part of the strange world they’d constructed. There’s always a worry with a breakout album that the crowd will only be focused for tracks from it, but older cuts like ‘Chaeri’ and ‘You Lose!’ also sounded brand new. Mica’s vocals were incredibly strong all night and the band elevated them for a seriously tight performance. The crowd was locked in all night.

Since I last encountered the duo, they have released 8 new singles, with half of them making the setlist. The shoegazey, ethereal ‘Nice Day’ and ‘This Is The World (I Made It For You)’ both added new sounds and textures to the set, the latter an upbeat, existential bop that is one of their strongest to date. ‘Paint Me A Picture’ was another newbie in the set, a bass-driven funkier track that caused a few heads to bop even up on the balcony.

The standout for me however was encore opener ‘Second Sleep’. A sprawling epic of a track that hopefully will become a mainstay at future shows. Closing things off with the bouncy ‘The Beginning’ from their ‘Mercurial World’ album, Matt and Mica got the entire Apollo jumping.