I've been kind of half-heartedly embracing Of Montreal for several years now. I like a lot of things about them, but I also dislike enough things that I always end up checking out their new albums when they come out but if somebody asks me if I'm a big fan, I say, "eh, not really." Anyway, they were on Conan O'Brien's show last night. It's pretty cool for them I guess. Check out the video:
of Montreal - Heimdalsgate like a Promethean Curse (live) on Vimeo
Like I said, it's cool for them that they get to be on national TV and whatnot. But since I'm a wet blanket and everything, I want to point out some things that I don't really like.
For starters, Kevin Barnes keeps drifting closer and closer to glam rock. His Bowie-ness is increasing, if not in the music than definitely in appearance.
Second, it's kind of reinforcing the image that Of Montreal is actually "The Kevin Barnes Show." I know that's the case anyway, but I'm starting to get uncomfortable with it. As if the costume changes weren't enough to draw all the attention to Barnes, I would swear he actually told the rest of the band to remain perfectly still. I've seen them live (and you may recall I was not entirely satisfied with that either), they actually do move. They looked like a band when I saw them. They look like Kevin Barnes and a backing band here. His vocals are even way up in the mix compared to the studio recording.
And back to those costume changes: does anybody else find them unnecessary and distracting? The song they're playing is actually a pretty good one, but I'd bet that a lot of people hearing them for the first time had no idea, because they were wondering why the dude with the makeup is suddenly wearing a huge lobster claw. It's kinda cool to try to replicate a music video onstage, but anybody who hasn't seen it (which is most people) was probably confused by it. Also, it's risky to be known exclusively for a music video, but that's for a post about Ok Go.
Now, I am aware that lots of people will like the performance for all of the exact reasons I didn't. So you know, don't pounce on me for being too negative. Or go ahead, I don't care.
1 comment:
You make a good point about being distracted by the costume changes. I certainly was. However, it seems like it comes down to what they want to put across in their television performance. That was a very daring and probably hard to produce performance (what with the well-timed pans to a jumbo screen with animations on it) - it could be that they figured out that live performances on television don't ever sound very good, so they decided to do something ridiculous visually. I bet a million people were turned on by this just because it was so daring and different visually, and because of that they'll start listening to them. Who knows. It was something that set them apart from every band that has ever performed on late night television, that's for sure.
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