The Post-Rockist

(Photo courtesy ishootshows.com)

Standing in front of a wall of lights, spindly legs and stoic painted face, Kevin Barnes looked like a man of the ages. Like an icon of 21st century music. Well, as iconic as a man can look when decked out like a sexually ambiguous Ken doll.

“The jacket I stole from The Golden Girls, the boots are Liza Minnelli’s, and the fishnets are from Elton John,” he explained. “That’s how you know I’m hot.”

The cucumber in his Daisy Dukes was, presumably, taken from Derek Smalls.

There were multiple video screens flashing hypnotic images of burning eyes and dripping tongues, horribly disfigured animal-people and amorous cartoon teenagers. There were four other musicians who looked like stand-ins for the costumed bandmembers in Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” music video. There were occasional cameos by men in tiger masks and half-naked vikings playing trumpet. But it was the comically accentuated appendage bulging out of the Of Montreal’s vocalist’s tight jean shorts that became the metaphorical and literal center of attention for the latter part of the evening, not that anyone would dare mention it. It was the elephant in the room, so to speak.

It’s not as if Of Montreal’s music is “sexual,” in any strict manner of speaking. Sure, the band’s latest album Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? packs a pantsful of rump-rumbling bass if all you need is a rhythm, but the lyrics are loaded with existential panic and spiritual self-doubt, which isn’t exactly a turn-on for most. I mean, whoever scored after quoting Kierkegaard? This is music for the mind as much as it is music for the body.

Case in point: the very next song the band was about the play, signalled by the octave bass pattern and the roar of crowd approval, “Gronlandic Edit,” toys with themes of nihilism and religious alienation, but yet it also manages to send the near-capacity venue into dancing hysterics: clapping, thrusting, and singing along. Have the introverted tales of a nervous singer-songwriter ever been so club-friendly? Barnes himself coyly acknowledges this dilemma he’s created for us as he sings our bodies electric, “Guess it would be nice to help in your escape from patterns your parents designed / [cue drums and crowd handclaps] All the party people dancing for the indie star, but he’s the worst faker by fa-a-a-a-a-ar, and in the se-e-e-e-e-et I forget (forget/forget/forget/forget) all the beauty’s waaaaaaaasted.”

And it’s as simple as that: we danced ourselves into oblivion. I could go on and detail the show from a critic’s perspective — taking notes on how the setlist didn’t delve any further into the band’s archives than Satanic Panic in the Attic, commending the band for having the balls (on display, as previously noted) to open their show with not one but two Prince covers (”I Would Die 4 U”/”Baby I’m A Star”), or bemoaning the infrequent use of real drums — but those details would be beside the point. This was all about being taken outside one’s self for a night and experiencing ecstasy through the sights and sounds of indie rock’s soulful, psychedelic apex.

And Kevin’s package.

After the show I felt so famished that I bought a hot dog from a street vendor. It was a foot long. The humor of the situation was not lost on me.

-Posted by Todd