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| "Wow! So blurry! Must've been a crazy concert! I envy Noah and his lifestyle!" -- What the reader should be thinking upon viewing this blurry picture |
I don't know where to start. I just went to a show and
it was really amazing. And not just based on the performances. of
Montreal, the headliner, got the people going. Just
considering the genre and style of these bands, you wouldn't think there would be
a lot of moshing or really physical involvement by the audience, but you'd be
dead wrong. Things got gnarly. Security had to go into
the crowd multiple times to try and stop crowd surfing. And this wasn't
due to the stereotypical bunch of drugged up masculine assholes either.
The crowd for of Montreal was very diverse, due especially, I think, to
lead singer Kevin Barnes' pan-sexuality. Everyone was
going nuts. I started the show standing next to a well groomed gay
couple, and by the end they were shirts-off drunk grinding. The theater was packed, and there wasn’t any
room to move around, but those guys made
room. I think a lot of the crowd enthusiasm had to do with the longevity
of of Montreal. I overheard more than one person say that, "I listened
to these guys a a lot in college." Get a band with a lot of
classic tracks over a lot of years, and people show up to the concerts ready
to slay.
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| A very blurry pic of Deerfhoof drummer Greg Saunier and his 3-piece kit. |
Deerhoof started off with a great set. They're a hell
of an opener to say the least. They've been around since 1994, and
deserve to be headlining their own shows, if it wasn't for people like the
sorority skank standing next to me during their set: "This is Deerhunter,
right? No? Well I'm just here for of Montreal, so whatever." If
there were two words to describe Deerhoof, it would be intricacy and intensity.
They squeeze wildly complex, dissonant guitar riffs through tiny practice
amps, creating screeching, unpredictable songs.
They play in a straight horizontal line across the front of the stage, and musically each member contributes equally. Their drummer is insane. He played the whole set with a kit consisting of a bass drum, a snare, and a flat ride. That's not much to go on, but he hits the shit out of what he's got. The guitarists are both really talented, and they have to be in order to pull off some of the riffs that their songs are based off. It was interesting to see instrumentalists genuinely challenged by their own material. I'm not saying that they had poor chops, just the opposite. Deerhoof tracks are hard as shit, and they clearly had to devote all their focus to nailing their parts. One of the guitarists, John Dieterich (always the one on the left, if you look them up), never ventured down his guitar neck more than half way, playing almost the entire set in an octave up. There was no discernible hierarchy between the two guitarists, each played like a lead. Rhythm guitar isn't really a thing in Deerhoof's world.
Finally, there's the bassist/vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki. Her repetitive, child-like vocals are an odd contrast to the noisy chaos that surrounds her, but it totally fits. Deerhoof isn't Deerhoof without those cheery, sometimes Japanese vocals. Her bass playing usually isn't vital to the songs, mostly providing harmonic support for the guitarists, but I think that her presence is very, very necessary to Deerhoof. She is the eye of the storm, inside a category 5 hurricane of sound that surrounds her. Without Matsuzaki, the band is just three dudes playing like its the end of band practice and they're just gonna go as loud and fast as possible.
Deerhoof's stage presence and performance style is completely unique, and not something I'm going to be able to describe well. You just have to see it yourself to get it. Wikipedia describes their stage banter as "surrealist" and I guess that's a good word for it. Matsuzaki's dancing is completely bizarre, and oddly endearing. Saunier gave two stuttering, half-incoherent speeches didn't make any sense as you listened to them, but somehow came together in hilarious punch lines. I would see these guys again just to see if I can figure out what the hell they're doing up there between songs.
They play in a straight horizontal line across the front of the stage, and musically each member contributes equally. Their drummer is insane. He played the whole set with a kit consisting of a bass drum, a snare, and a flat ride. That's not much to go on, but he hits the shit out of what he's got. The guitarists are both really talented, and they have to be in order to pull off some of the riffs that their songs are based off. It was interesting to see instrumentalists genuinely challenged by their own material. I'm not saying that they had poor chops, just the opposite. Deerhoof tracks are hard as shit, and they clearly had to devote all their focus to nailing their parts. One of the guitarists, John Dieterich (always the one on the left, if you look them up), never ventured down his guitar neck more than half way, playing almost the entire set in an octave up. There was no discernible hierarchy between the two guitarists, each played like a lead. Rhythm guitar isn't really a thing in Deerhoof's world.
Finally, there's the bassist/vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki. Her repetitive, child-like vocals are an odd contrast to the noisy chaos that surrounds her, but it totally fits. Deerhoof isn't Deerhoof without those cheery, sometimes Japanese vocals. Her bass playing usually isn't vital to the songs, mostly providing harmonic support for the guitarists, but I think that her presence is very, very necessary to Deerhoof. She is the eye of the storm, inside a category 5 hurricane of sound that surrounds her. Without Matsuzaki, the band is just three dudes playing like its the end of band practice and they're just gonna go as loud and fast as possible.
Deerhoof's stage presence and performance style is completely unique, and not something I'm going to be able to describe well. You just have to see it yourself to get it. Wikipedia describes their stage banter as "surrealist" and I guess that's a good word for it. Matsuzaki's dancing is completely bizarre, and oddly endearing. Saunier gave two stuttering, half-incoherent speeches didn't make any sense as you listened to them, but somehow came together in hilarious punch lines. I would see these guys again just to see if I can figure out what the hell they're doing up there between songs.
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| A blurry pic of Kevin Barnes and, um, others. |
After a half-hour intermission, of Montreal took the whole
thing to another level. Currently a five
piece band, lead singer and guitarist Kevin Barnes has been the only constant
member, and is indisputably the creative force behind the band. Their musical performance was fantastic. The bassist, Bob Parins, was aces laying down
of Montreal’s distinctive, funky walking lines.
The drums and lead guitar were equally great. The synth was present, but not as integral to
the performance as I thought it would be, and was largely buried in the
mix. The only real problem I had was with
the vocals. Barnes’ singing was great,
but a lot of of Montreal tracks feature lush vocal harmonies, and I was
interested to see if the band could pull that off live. They really couldn’t. Most of the backup was sung by the lead
guitarist, and then heavily filtered to try and replicate the recorded sound,
which didn’t work that well. Heavy
effects were also used on Barnes’ lead vocals at times, which seemed to
dominate the mix and make the songs muddy.
Otherwise, though, they were dope.
They played almost exclusively their older stuff, (i.e. the albums I didn’t listen to), but
played enough from “Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?” for me to be able to
sing along to some of the songs. They
ended their set with “Gronlandic Edit” and “A Sentence Of Sorts In
Kongsvinger”, which was where things got pretty grungy in the crowd. I was about 4th row, center, for
the majority of the performance, but got swallowed up and spit out 2nd
row stage right by the end.
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| A blurry pep talk with Kevin Barnes' brother |
The truly dazzling part of the show was the performance
style of the band. Barnes is a
modern day Ziggy Stardust, stomping around the stage firing off guitar riffs in
mascara and short-shorts. His
performance is clearly sexualized, (he’s pansexual, and married, to a woman,
with a kid, according to google.com), but I'd say his sexuality really isn’t a focus
of the performance. He could have been
on stage in jeans and a t-shirt and not much would have changed. What was really queer was what was going on
behind him the whole time. It seems that
the of Montreal roadies encountered a Party City going-out-of-business sale
at some point, and just really went all in.
People would randomly rush on stage in morphsuits and masks and any
number of other costumes and just fuck around for a while. At one point two people with horse masks,
American flag morthsuits and boxing gloves started fighting in front of the
drum kit. Then they stripped off their
morthsuits to reveal pillow, fake costume-boobs underneath. Another time, somebody with an Abe Lincoln
mask and Batman jumpsuit started dancing around with someone in a wedding dress. Other times, more composed, serious looking costumed
figures appeared, some with huge wings, or white, circular objects that images
were projected on from the back. At the
start of the show, and then just before the encore, Barnes’ brother, who tours with
the band, appeared onstage in a cape and red morthsuit with eye and mouth holes
cut out, and gave the audience philosophical pep-talks about enjoying the moment, and being part of
something bigger than themselves. I
really don’t know what the hell was going on.
So yeah, great experience. Go look these bands up if you haven't already. Or go to a concert, they're still on tour. Or don't. Whatever.
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