Of Montreal with Icy Demons - 11/12/2008

Of Mon­tréal with Icy Demons
Ware­house Live!
Novem­ber 12^th, 2008

Any­one who’s a regular-​to-​growing mem­ber of the music blo­gos­phere and/​or most music-​conscious hip­sters either has or has come across a wide rang­ing set of sto­ries, some true and some fable, about exactly what hap­pens when the Atlanta, GA-​based indie rock act Of Mon­tréal steps onto the stage. Tales vary from dis­cussing the ran­dom cos­tum­ing and set design deci­sions he and his band make on a reg­u­lar basis to rumors about lead singer/​songwriter Kevin Barnes com­ing on stage rid­ing a horse, not to men­tion the photo-​verified episodes of Barnes expos­ing his gen­i­talia. Some detrac­tors decry these stage antics as com­pletely and utterly dis­tract­ing from the actual music itself, while oth­ers pro­claim the band (and Barnes specif­i­cally) as genius, stat­ing that the sup­posed “antics” only add to the expe­ri­ence of see­ing the band per­form their eclec­ti­cally the­atri­cal brand of rock music. Nev­er­the­less, what­ever one’s opin­ions might be of the band’s live show (much less the high level of atten­tion they receive from the hip­ster elite), Of Mon­tréal put on a fan­tas­tic, jaw-​dropping, visu­ally stun­ning per­for­mance this Novem­ber evening.

The night began with an out­stand­ing forty-​five min­utes of music from a quirky quin­tet by the name of Icy Demons. This bril­liant art-​rock group hails from Chicago, IL and proved to be an impres­sive open­ing band as their funky, jazz-​influenced pop music served as an appro­pri­ate and timely coun­ter­point to what fol­lowed from Of Mon­tréal. Fronted by an exu­ber­ant bass player who alter­nated between a plugged-​in upright and more tra­di­tional elec­tric bass and wowed the crowd with his MC-​style vocal deliv­ery, Icy Demons’ heav­ily syn­co­pated songs dis­played a band with a level of pure instru­men­tal know-​how that helps them stand above the typ­i­cal assem­blage of indie rock­ers. Yet, through­out their set, more than any­one else, it was the drum­mer, what with his strong jazz chops and deft stick skill, that stood out as the dri­ver for the band’s deep, tech­ni­cal, but still fun and acces­si­ble sound.

Obvi­ously, Barnes & Com­pany filled the stage next, but before I get into the music, I feel it’s nec­es­sary to describe the stage setup. The mid­dle of the stage was left markedly empty, with only three micro­phones and a few speaker wedges present for Kevin (wear­ing a puffy white shirt and glit­tery black jacket); Brian Poole, the pri­mary gui­tarist (appear­ing as Bar­ney Rub­ble); and Davey Pierce, the pri­mary bassist (in Sgt. Pepper’s regalia). On the back right side of the stage stood a tall plat­form with a drum kit atop it, manned by the pri­mary drum­mer, Ahmed Gal­lab, dressed in a cliché of a Native Amer­i­can cos­tume. On the front left side of the stage, there was a shorter plat­form con­tain­ing two key­boards, a sam­pler, a gui­tar, and an ampli­fier cov­ered in pink fur, all the domain of Dot­tie Alexan­der in a sim­ple black dress. Back in the cor­ner on the left side stood two plat­forms, one with a bass gui­tar and key­board, while the other housed another drum kit, and both were under the super­vi­sion of a glammed-​up, fop­pish cow­boy named Jamey Huggins.

Granted, some of you might already be full of revul­sion at the need for such an osten­ta­tious stage con­struc­tion. I too was a bit dubi­ous as to what made this unortho­dox setup nec­es­sary, espe­cially when you toss in the weird (yet increas­ingly com­mon­place at rock shows) video imagery, but when the band started blar­ing “Id Engager,” the lead sin­gle from their new record, Skele­tal Lamp­ing, it all seemed to just fall into place rather effort­lessly. Over the next two hours, Of Mon­tréal proved that they are more than just trendy indie dar­lings who coast by on their cool­ness, and Barnes per­son­ally claimed the man­tle of this generation’s suc­ces­sor to David Bowie. Through­out the night, the band nailed every note and every stag­ing cue, while mak­ing sure that the music, whether bass-​driven booty-​shaking tracks or full-​fledged psy­che­delic rock freak-​outs, was front-​and-​center along­side the ongo­ing the­atri­cal shenanigans.

And oh were there shenani­gans – a six-​person act­ing troupe, in a seem­ingly unend­ing set of cos­tum­ing changes, per­formed a far-​flung set of ran­dom skits and scenes with Kevin dur­ing the entirety of the show. Some of them seemed to cor­re­spond to a song, while oth­ers just ramped up the trippy-​ness of the over­all extrav­a­ganza. Golden idols became black nin­jas who turned into Old West saloon denizens and then fash­ioned them­selves as var­i­ous ani­mals (tiger, pigs, cock­atiel, and par­rot among oth­ers), a lov­ing fam­ily, abbot and nun, gueril­las, and a demon with his ghouls, with the nin­jas and ani­mals mak­ing the most fre­quent return appear­ances. The most amaz­ing aspect of the entire effort was how Kevin was immersed in nearly all of these scenes, yet con­tin­ued to sing each and every word with­out miss­ing a beat (includ­ing his nearly nude shaving-​cream-​emergence from a cof­fin at the very end of the show).

On the whole, this show was one of the most com­pletely cohe­sive com­bi­na­tions of music, drama, and art that I have ever expe­ri­enced as a con­cert­goer. Admit­tedly, it occa­sion­ally proved to be dif­fi­cult to remove my eyes from the action on the stage to pay atten­tion to the actual music. Those who com­plain about the antics might have a point, but that is their taste, their per­sonal pro­cliv­ity regard­ing how they like to con­sume their live music. Of Mon­tréal and Icy Demons were able to put on an engag­ing night of music, com­plete with the musi­cians in each band aptly dis­play­ing their dex­ter­ity and tal­ents with the fre­quent exchange of instru­ments to play any given song. The video images and var­i­ous acted out scenes only served to enhance the music, not to detract from it; the musi­cians seemed to be enjoy­ing the show as they per­formed it, and if they are hav­ing a good time, then I should as well. It was an amaz­ing show, put on by two insanely gifted bands.

All pho­tos cour­tesy of Marc Brubaker of Click. Wind. Repeat. You can view more pho­tos at his Flickr pho­to­stream of the Of Mon­tréal show and Icy Demons set.