of Montreal (Concert Review)

My only gripe about an of Montreal show I witnessed some moons ago at Philadelphia's Union Transfer is that it happened close to Halloween, but not actually on Halloween itself. With the fantastical costumed creatures running across stage, frontman Kevin Barnes' flamboyantly outrageous garb, and the overall carnivalesque nature of the entire night, of Montreal's bizarre theatrics would've been perfectly suited for a celebration of the superstitious.

One of the things that makes of Montreal so much fun to see live, aside from the band's amusing eccentricity, is to witness Kevin Barnes interact with his fans. Instead of merely saying , "I really appreciate all of your support," Barnes actually shows his appreciation for his fans' support.

Barnes kicked off the night by crawling to the end of the stage, reaching his long lean body into the crowd, and serenading a single lucky lady from the audience. As he sung to her, he stared into her eyes, groped her face, and eventually kissed her on the forehead.

Even though I was standing only a few feet away from this playful tryst, it wasn't even my favorite spectacle of the night. Mind you, with the surreal imagery, we were treated to a number of visual spectacles throughout the set — two dancing owls, a giant human-sized fly, and Barnes leaving the stage for a hot minute only to come back dressed as a huge white butterfly on top of a dancer's shoulders. But the best visual spectacle of all wasn't even on stage. It was right in front of the stage. It was a girl dancing in the front row.

This girl had to be of Montreal's number one fan. In the whole history of humanity. She danced throughout the entire hour-and-a-half long show, only stopping twice, briefly, to get a double shot of hydrogen mixed with a single of oxygen. I really wish there was a way to describe this chic's dance style. But there was no style. Only dancing.

The first time this wonder woman stopped was to take off that annoying cumbersome thing otherwise known as a shirt, so she could move more freely in her sports bra. The second time was when Kevin Barnes leaned down from the stage to hold her hand. She completely froze. So did the rest of the audience. The frozen Fräulein was so excited that she didn't know what to do with herself. Neither did the rest of us. It was pretty amazing to witness.

Just like all of Montreal's music live.

It's like thinking you're taking a Listerine Cool Mint Pocketpak. But instead of taking a breath strip, you're actually taking an LSD blotter. Before you know it, you find yourself in a surreal world filled with absurd imagery. The storytelling, both visual and auditory, is dark and twisted, yet never scary. It's top-notch psych pop with continually evolving rhythm, percussion, story, and sound.

About half of the songs of the set at Union Transfer were from Lousy with Sylvianbriar. The other half were a varied assortment, mostly from Skeletal Lamping, The Sunlandic Twins, and Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? The eclectic, ever-morphing, highly prolific indie-pop band closed with two encore songs,"Gronlandic Edit" and "She's a Rejector," both of which are funky and fun danceable diddies.

The musical highlight of the night, however, was in the middle of the set, when of Montreal performed "Wraith Pinned to the Mist (and Other Games)." It's a piece of indie-pop perfection. And the song's lyrics "Let's have bizarre celebrations," tells you everything you need to know about attending one of Montreal's live shows.