Last night, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros graced the stage at the Grove in Anaheim, Ca. With Orange County being their current location of living, Ed and the Zeros felt just as much at “home” than the rest of us did. To open the show, the band hand picked 9 acoustic acts in an open mic night set up who only performed one song each. The performers were hit and miss. The most memorable act was a girl duo named Jenna and Alyssa performing an original song about zombies.

After about an hour and a half of somewhat mediocre music, fellow staff writer Lauren and I were ecstatic to see the lights grow dimmer for Edward and the Zeros to come on. They began with “40 Day Dream,” a love song. They beat the beat up to the intro like Jersey Shore with hard hitting repetitive bass drum. The build up led to orgasmic chiming in by the crowd, myself included.

“Janglin,” as made most popular by that 2010 Ford Fiesta car commercial, was next up. Alex Ebert danced around the stage in his usual entertaining spasmodic manner. We all acted as extra backup to the random jibberish versus in the song. The band extended the live performance of the song a tad bit longer than the CD version, only engaging the crowd even more.

After a few of their slower songs, they finally got to their most famous of songs, “Home.” Everyone in the audience instantly started jumping and dancing around, for obvious reasons. Alex and Jade mixed up their conversation bit of the song, totally reversing their roles and including the crowd.

Overall, the show was pretty amazing minus the forever last opening sets. I’m not one to knock on independent artists, but Lauren can vouch that some of them were just not tolerable. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros really know how to put on a show worthy of your full attention. All of the swaying and cavorting about the stage heighten the set. I definitely recommend going to see the band live, with or without the open mic night. Ed and the Zeros are off to Hawaii and then Australia for the rest of their tour. Dates and venues are available here.