Recap Of Montreal and Janelle Monáe at the Riv

While walking into the Riv, one girl attempted to sum up what was about to take place to her friend, who had never witnessed the Of Montreal spectacle before: “It’s a little different.” Another witness to the, um, show described his initial reaction to Kevin Barnes in his cardigan and tutu as, “He’s got kind of an Ace Ventura thing going on.” In a night filled with music mirroring art mirroring god-knows-what, it’s hard to glean any real significance of what it all meant—but it was a party, and maybe that was the point. Plus, Janelle Monáe was so good, it didn’t really matter what else occurred.

Barnes, his tutu, and a host of costumed creatures played out what could have been—and probably should have been—nothing more than a childish performance art troupe with a big budget acting out hallucinogenic improv. But somewhere between the multi-part falsetto harmonies (which worked surprisingly well live) and Barnes teaching pig people techniques for better sex lives, it all sort of, kind of came together. At times, the show bordered on becoming a straight up rock show, complete with well-executed solos from a Gibson SG—but then, here comes Barnes dramatically saddled on a giant beast. Crowd favorites like “Our Riotous Defects,” “The Party’s Crashing Us,” and even “Gronlandic Edit” ended up playing more like a soundtrack to the bizarre parade of ninjas, scantily clad monks, skull-children in pajamas, and other creatures of the absurd. By the time the Michael Jackson covers started, it felt like you’d just finished a full day of some creepy, fucked up version of Mardi Gras and the sun was coming up: The spins were setting in, there were strange visions of genitalia, and it was definitely time to call it a night on this decadent bender. Nonetheless, it was a fun ride most of the way.

The crowd’s enthusiasm and tolerance/enjoyment of the theatrics were in no small part provided by Janelle Monáe’s impressive opening set (and her duet half-way through Of Montreal’s set, in which she was mercifully subdued). Monáe’s time on stage was indisputably on another level from Barnes and his troupe, and was the kind of performance that merits her own headlining tour and/or a primetime HBO special. Her vocal quality was near perfect (props to the venue and sound crew) and her energy was infectious—by the time she jumped hair-puff-and-all into the crowd during “Come Alive,” the packed building was pulsing. Monáe had her own gang of dancers in greenman—er, silverman?—suits, but the stage show didn’t distract from the quality of her musical performance. After a masterful psych-shoo-op rendition of “Mushrooms And Roses” that ended bathed in purple, Hendrix-esque glory, any number of hyperboles could be heard within the audience as the crowd grasped for verbs to describe how she murdered, destroyed, and altogether “annihilated that set, man, like in a good way.”