Janelle Monae and Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes at Terminal 5

At its best, an Of Montreal concert is a creative, shocking and entertaining event, featuring surreal imagery and clever, well-crafted, and catchy music.  Kevin Barnes, the lead singer, songwriter, and creator cannot stand still and has never seemed to be complacent. He has been the (sometimes sole) force behind 10 Of Montreal albums released in the last 13 years.

On their new record, False Priest, Of Montreal is yet again, trying something different.  This time, Barnes (with collaborators) has cobbled together an album with soul and funk tunes that depart from the band’s recent psychosis-fueled magical realism albums. The title  is rather straightforward compared to the obscurity of their previous efforts Skeletal Lamping, Hissing Fauna: Are You A Destroyer? and Sunlandic Twins.  The result is a pleasant album with tracks that unfortunately fit awkwardly when mixed with older songs in a live show.   Saturday’s disjointed set at Terminal 5  was also compromised by accompanying theatrics that were remarkably subdued, by Of Montreal’s standards, and the venue’s substandard acoustics.

Of Montreal at Terminal 5 (Sept. 18, 2010)

The set kicked off with the electrified faux Spanish guitar trills of new single “Coquet Coquette” as Barnes emerged from behind two armed guards with gasmask wearing fishheads and spindly metal legs (yes, this is subdued by Of Montreal standards).

These guys: not in the band

The band followed with Bowie-esque “Our Riotous Defects” (with dancers wearing hot dog looking helmets), the funky “Godly Intersex” and “Sex Karma” (with a quartet of silver lobster people).  In one of the few apparent narrative vignettes of the show, Barnes provided couples counseling to a distraught pair of pigs (during “Girl Named Hello”), which included very clear demonstrations of ways to liven up their sex life.

Of Montreal – “Girl Named Hello”

The narrative continued with dancers in pajamas and Tim Burton-style skull masks (perhaps the young children of the bickering pigs) who sat at the front of the stage to watch Barnes play Sibylle Baier’s “Tonight” on a large plywood black and white TV.  At the song’s conclusion the kids trudged off to bed in halflight and the three large screens at the back of the stage displayed images of far-eastern oppression and poverty during the maudlin “Casualty of You.”  At the close of the main set, the pig parents seemed to reconcile and the skull children reappeared, this time on screen and again watching television as the band performed a Michael Jackson medley as an encore (including “Thriller” and “Startin’ Somthin”), which was an attempt at light celebration but came across as late night Southern Decadence drag karaoke.

Throughout, Barnes gamely performed as a variety of characters, starting in purple leggings, a pink mini skirt and matching headband with bright blue mascara.

yep, that's a dude

Later, he rode across the stage on a 20-foot-long blonde caterpillar (i.e. four dancers in a caterpillar suit) while performing “Hydra Fancies” and followed by wearing an iridescent hood and cloak that transformed into shimmering wings (the butterfly).  He concluded with bright red pants and a reed ruffled collar and he remained in motion throughout the show.  The rest of the band, unlike previous tours, was uniformly adorned with white face paint and clad all in white, either evoking the painted native army in the “Coquet Coquette” video or in observance of Yom Kippur.

While elaborate costumes and characters paraded across stage during most of the False Priest songs, Of Montreal performed their more established crowd-pleasers without theatrics and received much more enthusiastic responses, particularly during “Suffer for Fashion” and “Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse,” which is nearly impossible to dislike.

Also, Barnes was joined onstage by FP favorite Janelle Monae for a visually striking “Enemy Gene,” with Monae in black pants, white tuxedo shirt, and a springy pompadour and  Barnes in tights and a skirt. The two danced and hugged as they sang: “Love breaks the machine/Everything is half apart/What can it mean?”

Janelle Monae at Terminal 5 (Sept. 18, 2010)

Monae’s infectious energy and superior singing voice carried “Enemy Gene” and followed a stellar opening set, where she was introduced as an android from the future sent back in time to 2010 to deliver a message – “dance or die.”  She made a persuasive case (joined by a dancing nun during “Faster”) and showed flashes of James Brown during “Tightrope” by encouraging her band with “one more time!  C’mon now, one more time!” And then bursting into tightly choreographed spastic steps.  She ended with “Come Alive” leaping into the crowd and performing most of the song from the floor.  Give Monae another album or two and we may see Of Montreal opening for her.

Janelle Monae – “Come Alive (The War of the Roses)”

PJ Bezanson practices law in New York (by day and by night) but catches as many concerts as he can. He recently reviewed Jay-Z and Eminem at Yankee Stadium and the Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco. He believes in human frailty, free coffee refills and Achtung Baby.