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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

weekend

Indie band of Montreal brings their psychedelic live show to The Bluebird


For flag-bearers of a genre as concerned with authenticity as 
indie rock is, of Montreal is surprisingly fake.

That’s OK. Indie has never been as authentic as its beards-and-acoustic-guitars posturing would lead some to believe, and of Montreal’s brand of fake is neither malicious nor deceptive.

It’s fascinating.

Studying any aspect of the band’s music is like peering at a stereogram: the harder you look, the less vivid the illusion becomes. Its records, filled with drum machines and rubbery bass, sound less like the work of live musicians and more like a funhouse of Prince-esque synthesizers and “Rocky Horror” samples. The band’s song titles are intentionally elusive. Try guessing what “Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse” and “Chthonian Dirge For Uruk the Other” might mean. Though its name would suggest otherwise, the band is based out of Athens, Georgia.

Of Montreal cut through the smoke and mirrors Sunday night at the Bluebird Nightclub and translated its processed tunes and verbose songs to something playable via a stripped-back, five-piece band. When he skipped onto the stage, 42-year-old frontman Kevin Barnes cut quite a figure in his pink leggings, crop top and blonde wig. The rest of the band dressed more conservatively in suits and jackets. By the time of Montreal reached its third song, the synth-heavy “Let’s Relate,” a man in a gorilla suit was dancing with a woman wearing a pink teddy bear costume.

Of Montreal used costumes, lights and props to twist the standard concert format into something strange, psychedelic and infinitely more fun. For some songs, stagehands wrapped in black body suits crept onstage to hold up cloth circles onto which projectors beamed images of wolves, robots and women. For others, dominatrices appeared to seduce Barnes before people dressed as police officers wearing Halloween masks attempted to drag them offstage. Their efforts were foiled by a synth solo, and by the end of the song, everyone on stage was dancing. Most of the audience was, too.

I have no idea how much of the pageantry was sincere and how much was ironic. When you’re surrounded by whip-wielding dominatrices, feather-spewing dragons and cat mask-wearing priests, you tend not to care.

With its show, of Montreal brought lysergic bliss to the Bluebird. Don’t fight it, feel it.

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