When I got there, I noticed that the guy world-renowned for scalping tickets had branched out. Despite the recession, he had hired someone else to assist him with the selling of tickets at outrageous prices. This new hire gave off a less creepy, more incompetent vibe. Like think your old dad as you try to explain to him how to delete spam from his spam folder.
I’ve seen Janelle perform before, but this was easily the best concert she’s put on. Apparently her new album got infinitely better press than the new Of Montreal. Since I haven’t actually listened to either of their new albums, I’ll have to take the critic’s word on this, but I do plan on doing my own homework once I lay my hands on both.
Her voice has always been the main draw with everything else as an afterthought. Initially I was skeptical about how good the performance would be, since the early concert video warned me that I would “Dance or Die” but it wasn’t an idle threat. There was some serious dancing going on, along with wholesale slaughter of the non-dancers. After the first song, I got hooked. Grooves came so easy for her band, plus she’s really worked on some of the performance. Now instead of just surfing the crowd to be cool, there were small tokens of weirdness on stage. Dancing nuns and other such pieces helped make it a bit more interesting. Obviously some of this was inspired by Kevin Barnes’ freak feasts, but it did feel original in her hands. I really need to check out her new album (or probably not that new, I just always fall behind on releases).
Of Montreal
Stage performance art has to be sort of Kevin’s calling card. He’s known for stripping down to almost nothing and humping actors with Tiger masks. No Tiger masks were in attendance, but I did get to see a pig-woman go down on him, so that’s got to count. A big bonus was the closeness to the stage; usually I get pushed to the taking out binoculars area. It seems like they revamped a lot of the costumes, and allowed for more breaking of character. Multiple times the dancer/actor things got their costumes ripped off, to show the actual humans beneath. Plus, it looked like they moved on from some of the previous performance pieces, so this tour looks a bit more promising than the last few.
The encore could not have been better. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” got covered with the most delicate treatment possible. As the covers progressed, the Of Montreal crew got joined by Janelle and her band. Looking at the stage, it seemed like the end of Saturday Night Live was near, that’s how crowded it was. Plus, they all danced in some sort of near-orgy like energy. Seeing them all there, I hoped either janitorial staff would be asked up on stage, or, more selfishly, that the entire audience goes up there and grope in a fashion befitting Kevin Barnes’ likely perversion.
What had to have been the best part of the concert was my ability to tune out the audience completely. Usually I can’t keep my head straight with the utter uselessness of the audience as they take off their clothes in heat, or how they make out with their significant other who is unreasonably older/younger than they are, or people tweaking out on drugs. I’m not saying this didn’t happen, but I feel like it was kept to a smaller section than usual.
Overall, I enjoyed the whole thing and I really want to check out both albums. Way more energy on stage than I could possibly process.