Of Montreal Attracts Football Players, Glam Fans in D.C.

Live shows are a much better fit for Of Montreal frontman Kevin Barnes' ambitions. On record, it can seem like he's determined to re-create the high points of glam rock using just a drum machine, some zithers, and a selection of powered yard-care tools. And while Of Montreal's stage set is unmistakably homemade, it's a platform for Pink Floyd-sized (or at least GWAR-sized) aspirations. At the 9:30 Club, Barnes, dressed like a cross-dressing mariachi, emerged on a sedan chair, carried by four dancers dressed in gold lame Buddha outfits. It was one of the easier-to-explain spectacles in a night that saw him hanged from a gallows, painted red, and emerging from a flower-encrusted coffin covered in shaving cream. Also, there was music, but Of Montreal's ironic disco couldn't carry a show on its own. The six-piece band is charged not with hammering out musical epiphanies but with keeping the sexed-up dance party going. Barnes, incongrously for a fellow who looked as if he might kill himself at any moment, provided the sex, belting out falsetto tributes to Antarctica and blowjobs and lolling in a cardinal's outfit during "Women's Studies Victims" while a dancer in a naughty nun outfit tended to his tootsies, fitting him with some strappy ladies' sandals. He wore those (and little else save for a gold high-waisted, Capt. Kirk-style bikini bottom) for the rest of the show, leading a crowd that included Redskins tight end Chris Cooley in "Plastis Wafers"' chorus of "You are such a fucking star/You know you are." He was, for good reason, talking about himself.

Set List: "Id Engager"
"So Begins Our Alabee"
"Triphallus, To Punctuate!"
"She's a Rejecter"
"For Our Elegant Caste"
"Touched Something's Hollow"
"An Eluardian Instance"
"Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse"
"Gallery Piece"
"Wraith Pinned to the Mist (And Other Games)"
"Women's Studies Victims"
"St. Exquisite's Confessions"
"Eros' Entropic Tundra"
"Nonpareil of Favor"
"October is Eternal"
"Wicked Wisdom"
"Disconnect the Dots"
"Knight Rider"
"And I've Seen a Bloody Shadow"
"Plastis Wafers"
"Beware Our Nubile Miscreants"
"Mingusings"
"A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger"

Encore:
"Gronlandic Edit"
"Requiem For O.M.M.2"

Related Stories:
• New Music Report: Of Montreal
• Of Montreal Give Rothbury a Dose of Glam
• Album Review: Of Montreal, Skeletal Lamping

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Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

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