Stealing the Sizzle Of Montreal

by Caitlin Servilio

“When you’re on tour with Of Montreal,” explains Jackson O’Connell-Barlow, one half of Grand Buffet, “They give you two sizes of water bottles. The big one is for refreshing yourself. The smaller one is for smashing poor people with.”

It’s Tuesday night at the State Theatre in East Falls Church, Virginia and opening act Grand Buffet, a self-described “tropical goth” band (they’re really more rap/power pop) is amping up the volume, making joke after joke and dancing manically around the stage like marionettes in the hands of a cracked-out puppeteer. O’Connell-Barlow is a dangerously thin, red-bearded guy hurling himself around with abandon. The other half of the band, Jarrod Weeks, is a huge white man in a no-sleeved black sweatshirt, seeing how many politically incorrect remarks he can work into his set. The crowd’s laughing hysterically.

So maybe I should have been home in my dorm room writing up a physics lab or working on a midterm paper, but when one of my friends needed to sell her ticket to Of Montreal at the last minute, how could I refuse? (Remember the need for live music, as expressed in "(Mis)Adventures in Ticketland.") Of Montreal isn’t exactly my favorite band, but I hoped they might play “The Party’s Crashing Us” or “Disconnect the Dots.” And I had heard the band was wild — crazy costumes and weird stage props for its live shows. What I didn’t expect was how much fun both openers turned out to be.

The first opener in a set is usually the worst, when the crowd is impatient and ready for the show to really begin. But Mixel Pixel, a Brooklyn psychedelic electro-pop outfit, far exceeded any predictions I could have made. The four-member band, consisting of a guitar, a bass, and two synthesizers, took the stage in white sweatsuits decorated with animal ears and iron-on eyes. Behind them swirled a trippy videogame lightshow that featured PacMan, among other things.

But behind all the gimmicks was a catchy, interesting sound with so many rivaling influences that the effect is dense and a little cluttered, but not overbearing. Kaia Wong and Rob Corradetti’s vocals sweetened the digital brew. Some highlights of the show included “My Animal,” “Coming Up X’s,” and “At the Arcade,” some of which you can download from the band’s MySpace account.

Next came Grand Buffet. I had to wonder watching O’Connell-Barlow and Weeks whether these two guys had seen “Lazy Sunday” on Saturday Night Live and thought to themselves, “Hey, we could do that better.” But apparently they’ve been around for ages, and I really admired the energy with which they threw themselves into their set. They sang and rapped along to a CD player — a far different setup than Mixel Pixel and Of Montreal’s array of electric instruments. They also had a dedicated fanbase in the crowd, consisting mostly of huge (topping six feet) imposing men who stood front and center blocking everyone else’s view. However, Grand Buffet was so much fun that the vast majority of the crowd, hipsters who had come to see Of Montreal, were screaming right along with the rock n’roll Goliaths in their midst.

After two crazy opening acts, Of Montreal was oddly underwhelming. Sure, they walked out in dazzling costumes — fishnets on Kevin Barnes, pink angel wings on the guitarist, a metal helmet on the bassist — and started playing to an adoring crowd. However, I didn’t feel any energy from them. Barnes seemed like the only one who was even trying. The rest of the band stayed rooted in position, looking like robots who had watched the film Party Monster one too many times, not living up to the potential in their costumes.

We had to leave halfway through the set to catch the Metro back to Tenleytown, but even though Of Montreal still appeared to be trying to warm up, the show hadn’t been a waste of time. I fully plan to pick up a Mixel Pixel album as soon as possible.

(Promotional photo of Grand Buffet from Fighting Records. To see Mixel Pixel's R-rated video for "At the Arcade," please see below.)



music
Of Montreal
Grand Buffet
Mixel Pixel
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