For anyone who has never seen of Montreal live you are certainly missing out! The Georgia based act light up the stage with their frantic freak pop while bringing a few actors along for the ride to add a theatrical tint to a wonderfully entertaining show.
The band emerge dressed in all white with chalked faces under an intense strobe and start playing a sinister intro. Meanwhile a combination of a fish and gas mask has wandered on stage holding a couple of heavy looking guns.
Just before things get too sinister, but not less weird, frontman Kevin Barnes appears dressed like a time confused, trendy transvestite and the band launch into new track ‘Coquet Couette’.
The camp theatrical antics continue throughout and matched up with an impressive background projection they provides a wonderful alternative for those bored of watching just some folks playing instruments.
It is clear of Montreal know their stronger tracks as the stage antics are somewhat set aside when the band hit into songs, from their rousingly trippy 2007 release Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer, like ‘Gronlandic Edit’.
Various costume changes of bright coloured lycra and skeletal masks are gone through while the band work through tracks like ‘Enemy Gene’ and ‘Sex Karma’ from new release False Priest.
However, it is in the older songs that the true charm of the set is found. ‘Bunny Ain’t No Kind of Rider’ find Barnes at the peak of his powers. ‘She’s A Rejector’ injects powerful bouncing bass that pushes the crowd into an unrelenting sing-along while a blood drooling pair cackle around the stage in straight jackets.
Then the set takes a darker turn as Barnes disappears off stage and returns covered in golden cloth with a rope round his neck and performs a disturbed little number while animated war images project behind him.
This distressing image quickly gives way to screeching synths and Barnes, cloaked in a new skirted outfit, erupts into the pop bliss of ‘Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse’. Pop gems ‘Plastis Wafers’ and ‘For Our Elegant Caste’ from 2008’s Skeletal Lamping sandwich the clap-along ‘Suffer For Fashion’.
Before the band disappear off stage we are treated to a couple of dancing pigs and are drowned confetti to the chirpy funk sound of ‘A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger’.
After the band disappear a solitary pig stays on stage and whirls the crowd into frenzy for the band to emerge again and exit of a victorious note.
Instead of the expected cover song of Montreal fans have come accustomed to (no Nirvana or Franz Ferdinand tonight). The band instead delve further into their back catalogue than at any point in the night choosing the joyous silliness of ‘The Party’s Crashing Us Now’ from 2005’s Sunlandic Twins.
While of Montreal’s hyperactive, uber-trendy indie rock may not everyone’s cup of tea, it’s hard to argue with the amount of fun they dish out live. A wonderfully dramatic, thoroughly entertaining set overshadows the poor setting and leaves everyone waiting for the band hit Glasgow again.
Photos: Eilidh McMillan
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