Of Montreal, the flamboyant indie pop band from Athens, Ga., never stops pushing the envelope on its ever-more outlandish costumes and onstage setup. Three giant projection screens displaying swirling animation and other digital wizardry plus manipulated live video of the ornate performers created a banquet of eye candy and a hyper-psychedelic atmosphere at the first of three sold-out shows at Music Hall of Williamsburg.
A circus of red-faced ninjas, pig people and squishy-looking trolls menaced by a tiger-headed man ran amok amidst the five musicians, who were adorned with varying degrees of makeup and costume. Of Montreal’s ebullient frontman and mastermind Kevin Barnes, decked out in skintight black pants, a midriff-baring white shirt and a green bolero coat, served as the ringleader through a seamless set of electronics-heavy hallucinatory pop, the crowd dancing to the pounding beats and hanging on Barnes’s every word. Though the group is touring in support of Skeletal Lamping, Of Montreal’s ninth and most recent record, the audience lost it for classics like “Wraith Pinned To the Mist and Other Games” from 2005’s The Sunlandic Twins. But the crowd was basically ecstatic throughout the almost two-hour set because, after a decade of existence, Of Montreal’s boundlessly energetic creativity has never been more tantalizing to watch.
Photo courtesy of Lucas Cometto via Flickr.
