(Copied from the last.fm journal, what else?)

of Montreal, 2nd August at the Scala

Going to see of Montreal was less like going to see a band play, and more like going to see some bizarre circus with musical accompaniment. Which is, of course, no bad thing.

The first support, the Wave Machines, gave a gentle introduction to the visual oddity we were to experience later in the evening by wearing masks of themselves. They sounded pretty good to me, and appeared far more interesting live than the tracks on their myspace would have me believe. Unfortunately, the vocals ended up sounding very muddy down to a dodgy mic I guess, something which would be a problem throughout the rest of the night.

The second support, Pull Tiger Tail, were unfortunately a run-of-the-mill indie-schmindie guitar band, even if they did have a number of rather fetching tiger masks to throw out to the crowd, and two rather fetching guitarists at the front. Still, I was there to see weird and delightful things, not bland and attractive things, so was glad when their set came to and end.

From our prime position right at the front on stage-right, directly in front of keyboard lady when she appeared, we could quite easily read the setlist, and so were wondering what the song 'Verdi' could possibly be (I only got into of Montreal from Hissing Fauna and thus am mostly clueless when it comes to songs from their back catalogue). Turns out that Verdi was not an of Montreal song but was, in fact, a piece of opera- presumably by Verdi, someone name me what it was exactly?- which came soaring out of the speakers as the first sequin-masked putty man took to the stage. This being was soon joined by what looked a bit like a be-winged Elvis impersonator on guitar and the rest of the band, Kevin Barnes resplendant in skinny pink and white jeans, a red shirt with flouncy flower-petal collar, and plenty of glitter.

I can't think of much better jobs than being a player in the of Montreal travelling pantomime; on top of a whole troupe of the sequin-masked putty men, who had an onstage punch-up between themselves as well as a confrontation with Barnes, there was a man with a giant lobster claw (as seen in the Heimdalsgate video), a quiet newspaper-reading businessman whose sole job was to go absolutely ape during the chorus of She's A Rejector, and a reject from a 70s sci-fi show who generously ladled out what looked like red paint into plastic glasses for the eager crowd. At some point during the spectacle, Kevin Barnes chaned into teeny-tiny, very tight blue shorts with matching ankle boots and fishnet tights and continued to command the stage. (As with Rufus Wainwright, I found myself cursing him for having better legs than me- I really need to stop seeing pretty, cross-dressing men, it's bad for my self esteem.)

The music was great as well, of course, even though I did feel it was rather secondary to the antics of the characters on stage; The Past is a Grotesque Animal sounded brilliant live and held my attention for all of its 12 minutes, something which it struggles to do on record. The woozy feel of Oslo in the Summertime was ramped right up by playing it at about half the speed and with head-buzzing distortion. While the balance of the vocals bugged me a bit, I couldn't help just grinning like an idiot at everything, especially when one of the putty men burst a number of glitter-filled balloons over the crowd. When the last song ended, the whole cast came out to bow to the crowd, including the vision of cuteness that is Alabee. Unfortunately we had to leave before the encore, so I don't know what other songs and bizarre happenings we missed out on, but I'd already seen more than enough to make me happy.

While not the best show I've seen musically, this was definitely the funniest and the oddest, which are two equally important things. So, FANTASTIC. I wish Kevin Barnes were my dad.

(And thank you so much Arabella for coming with me despite the grating effect of Hissing Fauna on your ears!)




I didn't get to see this song as it was part of the encore, but the video alone makes me smile inanely.