Of Montreal @ The Pabst Theater
Oct. 26, 2008
On their last tour through Milwaukee, Of Montreal forewent their usual gaudy stage show for a stripped-down glam-rock concert built around a brainy light-up stage. As if making up for lost time, though, for their return appearance the band broke out their giant toy chest, filling the stage with enough extras, set pieces, costume changes and paper-mache rubbish to make a Flaming Lips concert look tastefully understated.
Busy and cluttered, the show was in some respects the perfect accompaniment to Of Montreal's unlikable new Skeletal Lamping, a manic album with half the heart and a tenth the attention span of its lovely 2007 record, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? Frontman Kevin Barnes cried out Skeletal Lamping's libidinous sentiments in Prince's orgasmic falsetto, pairing his shock lyrics with equally shocking imagery. He stripped to his underwear, made living mannequins touch each other inappropriately, and sang "I'm so sick of sucking the dick of this cruel, cruel city" costumed as a clergyman, flanked by a voluptuous nun.
For such a "freaky" album, Skeletal Lamping is surprisingly humorless, at times even hostile. Indeed, in its rare moments of pathos, Barnes even hints that its hyper-sexuality may stem from something more tragic than just runaway urges, most likely sexual abuse. "We can do it soft-core if you want, but you should know I take it both ways," Barnes squeals to a disco beat in "For Our Elegant Caste," but that song's Christmas-morning enthusiasm abruptly gives way to a solemn, solo piano riff, over which the singer laments, "Why am I so damaged, girl?"
That stark, party-killing transition might have been bone-chilling in concert had Barnes' electric piano been plugged in when he began to play it-which, of course, it wasn't. Earlier in the set, the piano had been the centerpiece of a wild-west shootout, and like just about everything on stage, it proved more prop than instrument.
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