It got more than a little heavy in the hours running up to the of Montreal show Monday night. Mass devastation near Oklahoma City (home of my beloved Flaming Lips), the passing of Doors cofounder Ray Manzarek... it was impossible not have mortality and other heavy thoughts on the mind heading downtown to party. But a party with of Montreal and their psychedelic pageant of funk, art, sex, life and death was the ideal way to work it all out, and of Montreal did not disappoint.
First though I have to give some love to Wild Moccasins, who opened the show perfectly. This young band from Houston delivered an exquisite set of tight yet dreamy new wave pop that in many ways seemed too good to be true. The band looked right from Central Casting, so much so that I actually had to laugh while I danced. Their indie rock as 80's pop was irresistible; the songs were sharp and loaded with hooks, the band was imminently tight, and the vocals of Zahira Gutierrez were impressively powerful, expressive, and... rather alluring, in a vintage pop star way. Because it was hard to say whether they were real or a really great dream, Wild Moccasins totally got me in the right head space for of Montreal.
One of my all time favorite concert moments came during one of the many freak out moments that dotted the now legendary of Montreal and Janelle Monae show from 2010. The lights were flashing, the projections were transifixing, the band was on fire, the cock dragon may or may not have been on stage, and the guy in front of me who may or may not have been wearing an Izod shirt yelled to his buddy "DUDE, WE'RE TOTALLY GOING TO DIE TONIGHT!" Of course nobody was dying that night; the crowd was obviously non violent and we were safe as houses at the Town Ballroom, but it was an appropriate thing to say nonetheless. Because they push everything to the edge, anything seems possible at an of Montreal show, which is why I really love going to their shows.
And we got a vintage of Montreal show. The Town Ballroom really fits them perfectly at least in terms of the entire audience really being on top of the band and part of the action and spectacle, and the energy was insanely high as the band ripped through a wild and funky set accompanied by the always pleasing of Montreal accoutrements of freaky lights, trippy animated projections, and performance art. I'm no fan of performance art but theirs I always enjoy, in part because it's usually like a cartoon come to life, always contextually consistent, and it never overshadows the ensuing funk dance party, which we had last night and then some.
The setlist consisted of choice of Montreal classics like "Chrissy Kiss The Corpse," "I Was Never Young" and "Oslo In The Summertime" and funk workouts like "Do U Mutilate?" and "Plastis Wafers" off of Skeletal Lamping and False Priest. To be honest with you I wasn't really keeping track of the setlist as the show unfolded in favor of being on the floor dancing with the masses and experiencing the show as directly as possible. If I had to pick highlights I'd have go with "Plastis Wafers" because it's lewd grooves really kicked the dance party into gear and "Sex Karma," which sizzled in large part due to the a hot performance of the Solange parts by an unidentified back singer who kicked ass, and "Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse" which closed the show with a psychedelic freak out flourish that drove the passionate and enthusiastic crowd NUTS.
The encore sent the crowd into an ecstatic delirium, even when they played something that nobody had heard of by one of the band member's side projects by the name of Space Trucks. We didn't care, we just wanted to dance and keep the liberated freak out vibe going, and when they charged into "Gronlandic Edit" and "She's A Rejector" they crowd went completely around the bend. The glammed out art funk of "She's A Rejector" in particular riled the audience into a frenzy, maybe because we sensed that the show was reaching it's conclusion and we wanted to push ourselves further and closer to the edge of losing our....
In any case of Montreal finished strong, giving us an apocalyptic art funk dance meltdown, triggering a few obligatory religious experiences for the kids and for the of Montreal newbies, before sending us home satisfied, overcome by art at a shared experience, and very sweaty.
I've seen of Montreal 3 times now and they're if nothing else very interesting. At the same time the cold hard reality that I haven't liked one of their albums since Hissing Fauna is starting to set in and I'm finding myself less interested in them overall.