[ATTENDED: April 22, 2023] Magic Sword
I saw Magic Sword open for Avatar back in 2021 and I knew I’d want to see them again.
What I wrote about them then stand up pretty well for this show:
There are three members: The Keeper (red, keyboard, audio-visual), The Seer (blue, guitar), and The Weaver (yellow, drums). Oh yes, they are all masked (and not COVID masked, but like a fencing mask with a glowing light (in the above color) for the eyes). All of their songs are pretty heavy with a main riff (and bass) coming from the keys and really heavy drums. And then The Seer plays some extended impressive and super catchy guitar solos.
Every song feels like the exultant triumph of a cheesy 80s sci fi movie. Which is not to say that their music is cheesy (it really rocks) but that it would be placed in a cheesy movie–and would sound great.
In fact, the band has written epic stories (and comic books) that go along with their music. These songs are the soundtrack to those stories. So it all makes sense.
The set opened with a proclamation in a deep voice explaining that Magic Sword was here to defend all that good in the world. And then the trio came out.
It’s all vaguely preposterous, but they are completely into it (The Weaver is excellent at getting the fans pumped up) and the music is so good, that it all works wonders. A handful of people in the crowd had purchased Magic Sword swords (a tiny imitation of the real Magic Sword sword) and waved their blue glow around.
I felt like they played newer songs–songs that were a little more complicated with some excellent stops and starts in them. But, since they are all instrumentals, it’s hard to know what songs they played.
But most importantly, mid way through the set The Keeper held aloft the blue glowing Magic Sword and all was well in Philadelphia.
I really thought my son would enjoy this show and he said he enjoyed Magic Sword a lot. So that’s cool.
When the show was over we went to the merch table and I was pretty tickled to see that if you didn’t know what you wanted, you could roll a D20 and see if luck was on your side. The guy in front of us rolled it and was granted the right to have his picture taken holding THE Magic Sword.
Cool.
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