E-mail
Print
‘A phallo-centric tyranny’
Of Montreal presents hedonism at its best
By Melissa Campbell
Midway through the 90-plus minute set, Barnes, the love child of David Bowie and Prince, stripped down into a metallic itsy bitsy man-kini, parading and prancing around in a pair of silver, strappy kitten-heel sandals.
There is something decidedly retro about of Montreal. While most modern rock bands seem content to take the show armed only with their instruments and larger-than-life egos, this Georgia band, like the glam bands of years past, has a flair for the dramatic.
In a small 2005 show, lead singer Kevin Barnes took four costume changes. At a recent NYC show, the band brought a white stallion onstage. And last Monday at the Pabst Theater, backed by large projection screens, dressed in outlandish garb and flanked by a posse of performers, of Montreal delivered a spectacle in every sense of the word.
The phrase “avant disco” has been used to describe of Montreal and it’s not hard to see why. In the opening moments, gold apes danced in unison during “Id Engager,” off the band’s newest album “Skeletal Lamping,” before revealing ninja costumes with rhinestone-studded masks. And this was only the beginning.
The stage stretched to two floors to accommodate dual drum sets and keyboard/synth sets. A small, moving stage occupied the center of the floor and was the source of revelation for the band’s multi-purpose performers. The three projection screens showed looped animations, live VJ feeds and home movies.
Masks also played a large part in the show; a character wearing a chicken head led the crowd in the encore cheers.
Not known for their timidity or subtlety, everything was provocative, indulgent and superfluous. Midway through the 90-plus minute set, Barnes, the love child of David Bowie and Prince, stripped down into a metallic itsy bitsy man-kini, parading and prancing around in a pair of silver, strappy kitten-heel sandals. Earlier he wore an orange Cardinal dress while a risqué nun massaged his feet.
And later Barnes donned a pink fuzzy bathrobe as he was ceremoniously hanged from the gallows by black-robed performers—he was later resurrected from a coffin. In all, Barnes easily slipped into five or six different outfits and wore at least three different pairs of shoes.
Though the show was ripe with indulgence, the band wasn’t overcompensating. Barnes’s voice, including his impressive range, was pitch-perfect, the compositions were complex and the set was tight. Each song flowed effortlessly into the next, even has roadies rushed on stage to adjust cords and to toss Barnes a new guitar. The crowd, an eclectic mix of hipsters, hippies and even some older folk, cheered when the band played favorites like “Chemicals,” “She’s a Rejecter” and "So Begins our Alabee” and lengthy-titled “Wrath Pinned to the Mist and Other Games.”
The show came to an ironic ending with a “Moulin Rouge”-esque performance of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the band’s hedonistic exorbitance countering the anti-glam of grunge rock. of Montreal pulled out all the stops for their Sunday night show. It had all the elements of success: great energy, hyper-sexualization and, of course, an old-fashioned hanging. What more could anyone want?
> Comments