Five Reasons Of Montreal was fun:
1) It contained a tiger in a tuxedo, fighting a superman dinosaur, complete with 30-second improv noise jam. I’m not sure that even Kevin Barnes knows where to take stage performance from there.
2) The faceless spandex ninja dudes from the video for Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse appeared. Kevin Barnes sang from one of their shoulders.
Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VeIL7juFE0]
3) He was note perfect, by the way. Despite being sick. Draped in an indian-style shawl, eyes painted blue (but not like Michael Stipe), Kevin Barnes was the musical diva extraordinaire we always knew he would be.
4) Partway through, the stage was invaded by The Show Is The Rainbow’s gay younger brother. Sporting a pink leotard and a mane of hair to put Mufasa to bed crying, he tossed sparkle dust over the crowd, ate fruit provocatively, and redefined sexy in about two minutes.
5) They didn’t play much of Skeletal Lamping. Yay!
Five Reasons Of Montreal was a disappointment:
1) At the end, Kevin Barnes asked everyone to make out with a stranger. I grabbed one, and got no such making out. Probably because it was a dude. Note to self: factor in sexual orientation.
2) The sound was murky for alot of the set. Barnes’ vocals cut over the top (probably on account of his ludicrous falsetto), but it was obvious, particularly on the out of control Skeletal Lamping numbers, that you weren’t hearing everything that was being played onstage.
3) Kevin Barnes was sick, and I wish I meant that in the good way. His Prince vs Madonna performance that I had been dreaming of was curbed by some mystery illness, one that still let him hit every fucking note imaginable though. Whoa.
4) For a band whose singles are far and away the highlights of their albums (save maybe for The Past Is A Grotesque Animal), the set was largely non-single material, coming home strong with the ending of She’s A Rejector, Heimdalsgate, Id Engager, Suffer For Fashion and This Party’s Crashing Us. It just meant that the last quarter of the show made the rest seem totally obsolete.
5) There was no spark. Far from being a boring show, it was more of a lacklustre performance. They came onstage, they played their songs, they left. Were this a New Pornographers show, it would’ve been the most boring show of the summer (ohhhh burn). However, Of Montreal’s saving grace is that they are inherently crazy. Between the costume changes, the dancers and the fighting, the theatrics made for the most fun of the evening. It doesn’t excuse a tired musical performance though.
The gripes about this show were sadly highlighted when I caught Bonaparte playing at Mighty afterwards. This was probably the 5th or 6th time I’ve seen him play in about 2 weeks, and he still brought as much energy as he did at Camp. I may be bored of his music, but I’m not the way he performs it live- the mirror image of my sentiments for Of Montreal. KEEP IT FRESH. Apparently even the Rolling Stones can. If the only quality performance I wanted on Thursday was the stage theatrics, I’d have saved my money and bought a ticket to a Fringe show. I’ve got an addict card and everything.
James Beavis
