Of Montreal: The Best Homoerotic Concert

By Connect2Mason Writer Eamonn Rockwell

I was running late trying to be one of the first people in line at the Of Montreal concert at the 9:30 club on Thursday night. As I had gotten tickets early and it was a sold out show, I figured a lot of snot-nosed punks would take my rightful place at the front of the stage. But there was no way in hell I was going to leave the show early just because the Metro closes at midnight, so I had to take my 1984 Chevy Caprice, a station wagon so beastly that it creates its own orbit. Chicks love the car, too, probably because that much pure manhood can make any woman or gay man go insane with lust, but this was not time to be trying to pick up girls. I had a concert to get to and that jagon in front of me was going five miles an hour down Constitution Avenue. Once I found the club, I desperately looked for parking in a sketchy-looking area which had four-hour-limit parking meters. I shoved some quarters in it and ran to the back of the line.

Once inside, I made a mad dash to the bathroom and then to the front of the stage. As I predicted, some hipster douche was right in front of me and some guy she was with who was tall enough to knee a giraffe in the face was next to her, blocking my view of center-stage. On a side note, let me say that I’ve never seen a denser collection of hipsters, not even when I put all the members of Broken Social Scene in a super-collider and accelerated their most basic hipster molecules to near light-speed. There were more cute underage hipster girls than I could shake a stick at. FYI, shaking your stick at cute underage hipster girls will get you a stern warning from the 9:30 club staff. And furthermore, ladies, leggings do not count as pants. I don’t mind if they’re on my bedroom floor, but I do mind when you wear them to the 9:30 club because you think that they qualify as something to cover your legs with.

Despite the crowd, consisting almost entirely of little hipster kids with more American Apparel clothes than sense, and despite being the oldest person there who wasn’t a parent, I still felt the concert was one of the best I have ever attended. I knew it was going to be wild given lead singer/founder Kevin Barnes’ constant desire to get naked and the general wackiness of the band, but once I saw the signs saying that entering the venue was giving consent to be used in a film, there was no doubt in my mind that this one was going to be big. After watching the first band, a little Swedish group by the name Love Is All, I stood around and waited for of Montreal (technically you’re not supposed to capitalize the “of”, but I’ll do it anyway for clarification). Their crew had already put up two sets of drums on risers about eight feet off the stage and were busy setting up what I thought was a screen, although they already had three huge screens suspended from the ceiling. After the setup, the two drummers, the bassist, the guitarist/bassist (who had a totally sweet doubleneck bass and guitar) and the girl who hits three notes on the keyboard that don’t add that much to the music came on, letting the music build before the screen thing, which turned out to be a revolving stage, revealed Kevin Barnes and four actors dressed up in gold Buddha outfits.

What followed for the next hour and a half or so was nothing but blasting psychedelic pop, over-the-top theatrics and numerous costume changes that would offend anyone even remotely homophobic, mostly because of Barnes’ tiny gold lamé booty-shorts. But from the reaction of the audience, you would’ve thought it was a lecture on the politics behind low-level NASA research on which ants work best in space (Freedom! Horrible, horrible freedom!). These kids moved less than a dead zombie at an ice hotel. I don’t know what kind of show these brats thought they were at, but just in case I see any of them at another show, I’m bringing my gun so I can shoot at their stupid ballet flats and make them dance, or at least make more room for those of us who want to have fun and don’t hate this country.

But the awful fans can’t be blamed on Of Montreal; they were too busy blowing minds with music and theatre to notice, which is what a professional band does. And the fans did show their support when the songs ended, which I suppose is what matters. In any case, a band that’s been around for 11 years playing material far beyond what most bands these days can do while incorporating a visual feast (as well as a naked lead singer covered in shaving cream for the final song) doesn’t need people dancing. They could play the phone book and I’d shell out $20 to see it (they probably will play the phone book at some point, as they release new material all the time). My haul this concert was limited to just really, really, really good music, as some jerks in front of me got the set lists. In any case, everyone who has a remote interest in dance, indie, rock, pop or theatre should see an Of Montreal concert at some point in their life. It’s sort of like the music fans version of the hajj. You’ll either think that it’s amazing or not exist because there’s no way to hate a show this good. It’s the whole package, stuffed into tiny gold lamé booty-shorts.