Of Montreal hit Cat's Cradle Monday night with one of their trademark shows: Kevin Barnes in a dress, people in black bodysuits and red masks playfighting mid-song, pig and tiger masks and absolutely limitless energy.
I missed the first opener but caught most of the second, a punk band named Inkwell that had nothing in common with Of Montreal. They played capable synth-aided indie punk and successfully managed to get some of the crowd dancing in advance of the real show, but possibly the highlight of their set was the intentionally awkward banter between the vocalist and lead guitar. Pretty adorable.
It was obvious that the crowd knew full well Of Montreal's reputation for killing it live; the anticipation during a long set break kept resulting in spontaneous screaming and slow claps. When the band finally made it onto the stage—preceded by a guy in a white suit and tiger mask, who reappeared multiple times throughout—guitarist Bryan Poole was sporting pink feathery wings and Kevin Barnes rocked a green half-jacket with padded shoulders. Barnes went through a gold Roman head-wreath, no shirt and a dress and sun bonnet before the end of the evening, and his voice was spot-on as he preened and shrieked his way through a set heavy with songs from recent LP Skeletal Lamping as well as its predecessor and fan-favorite Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
Classics like "Rapture Rapes the Muses" and "The Party's Crashing Me" also found their way in there, generally to very enthusiastic crowd responses, but the night's highlight likely came with a rendition of "She's a Rejecter" that had the band and the audience jumping out of the room. Other than personal disappointment that "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse" and "Suffer for Fashion" were left unplayed, the band fulfilled expectations and then some.
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