Of Montreal/Tabernacle/11.07.08

It was my pleasure to head to Atlanta to see Of Montreal at the Tabernacle last Saturday. I really starting enjoying their previous album “Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer?” a month after they played at Bottletree last year, much to my chagrin. This is a long-standing tradition of mine- get into a band right after they played a show locally in a venue that I will never again see them in. I won’t list the other bands this has happened to- it makes me too sad.

Fortunately, Of Montreal booked an Atlanta date, touring for their new album “Skeletal Lamping”. This is not a review of that album, but let me briefly explain to you that Of Montreal bring some unique things to the table that I would not normally like. As I’ve stated to my friends before, it’s, well, a little gay. Kevin Barnes, the lead singer, has an alternate persona named Georgie Fruit who is a transsexual shemale. Yeah. But the music’s really good!

And it would have to be. I am not going to use the occasion of my first post on bham.fm to speak ill of homosexuality, or shemales, or even people whose last name is Fruit. Let’s just say that these are not normally things that I am looking for in my music.

But the show- the show is in a very real sense what Barnes is thinking. It’s a perverse opera full of humorous and strange characters and situations. I’ve seen GWAR, I’ve seen the Impotent Sea Snakes. It is not possible for me to be shocked at a rock show anymore. But if someone wandered into this show, and saw Barnes standing in his underwear being painted red by robed figures, or the fake hanging of Barnes (not missing a lyric!), they might wonder exactly what they are seeing. Every song had some simple or elaborate theatric notion to it. One song featured a party scene, with actors frozen on the set. Barnes rearranges their hands and positions to a much more sexual scene (once again, while singing every line). Another featured dog masked figures harassing a tiger masked female.

And so on. It was like that all night. I can’t even recall them all, because there were so many. I found out when I got there that they were making a DVD of the show. I wonder if that accounted for the bands energy and stamina- they played well over 2 hours with only a very short break for the encore. My guess is that it’s like that every night. This is a band having fun, doing what they want. The new album is the antithesis of a commercial release. And nothing in this show will be in an Outback commercial.

Overall, the show was excellent. I have always thought Tabernacle has an average sound to it- I much prefer a more intimate setting. The only snag of the night was getting my pass- it caused me to miss the first band, the Icy Demons. I caught all of Limozeen’s set. They did nothing for me, despite their Homestar Runner/Guitar Hero connection. The main attraction, Of Montreal, are a confident band and gave the nearly full house of the Tabernacle a show. I cannot tell you that I would normally want to watch a ninja douse a man in makeup with glitter at most of the shows I go to, but I can tell you that for one night, I didn’t mind. It was a fitting example of a band that at the very least, lives up to the idea that music is much more than a 45 minute CD.