Skip to content
Entertainment
Link copied to clipboard

Over-the-top, under-attended

In another life, perhaps Kevin Barnes would have been a salty vaudeville song-and-dance man, a cross-dressing British dance-hall queen, or an avant-garde playwright in the Summer of Love, all of which would have prepared him for his current life as the auteur behind the constantly self-reinventing indie-pop mainstays Of Montreal. And in a better life, he would be bigger than Lady Gaga, packing a two-night stand at the Wells Fargo Center.

In another life, perhaps Kevin Barnes would have been a salty vaudeville song-and-dance man, a cross-dressing British dance-hall queen, or an avant-garde playwright in the Summer of Love, all of which would have prepared him for his current life as the auteur behind the constantly self-reinventing indie-pop mainstays Of Montreal. And in a better life, he would be bigger than Lady Gaga, packing a two-night stand at the Wells Fargo Center.

Instead, he'll have to settle for a half-full one-nighter at the Electric Factory, as was the case Wednesday night, where Of Montreal kicked off its tour in support of the just-released False Priest, the band's 10th and arguably best album to date.

As is the case with most Of Montreal shows, Wednesday's performance was a two-hour tour de farce of kicky, white-funk pastiche, gender-bending showmanship, luridly costumed theatricality, and multimedia sensory overload - bizarro films, stuttering strobe lights, and a blizzard of confetti and feathers. There he was, rocking a white, lacy skirt, turquoise top, and matching go-go boots, backed by a crack eight-piece dressed in immaculate white, prancing and dancing his way through a joyous 20-song set that blended cheeky new confections ("Coquet Coquette," "Sex Karma") with older touchstones ("Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse," "St. Exquisite's Confessions").

Every song became an elaborate set piece, with a revolving cast of outrageously costumed characters performing sultry and surreal mini-dramas in the background: skeletons with fishlike heads, demons with flaming skulls, a giant robot with a glowing dome for a head, and scantily clad concubines, all performing some variation of simulated sexual congress in an ongoing passion play about . . . what, exactly? That remains unclear.

But even to ask such a question is to miss the point, which is this: Stop worrying, dance, and be happy.

Where Of Montreal re-created the songs of its extant albums with note-perfect clarity, Janelle Monae's opening-act set was a hot mess, and I don't mean that in a good way. Hard to say if it was the sound man's ham-fisted jiggering of the mixing board faders or the Electric Factory's notoriously unforgiving acoustics, or some combination of the two, but Monae's much-anticipated set was an inchoate blur of sound that rendered standout tracks from her deservedly acclaimed debut, The ArchAndroid (Suites II and III), all but indecipherable. Even when the rest of the band left the stage and Monae dueted with her guitarist on Charlie Chaplin's "Smile," it sounded as if they were playing two different songs at the same time. Not good.