Of Montreal Live at the Showbox (Slideshow)

People talk about an Of Montreal show because you can’t not talk about it, which is why, eleven days after their show in Seattle, I’m still going to put up this slideshow. It’s more because I felt the need for photographic proof–that if I just mentioned the pigs and Mexican wrestling you imagine something that is not quite right. For all that, what I remember is the audience singing along, full-throated, “Eva, I’m sorry, but you will never have me,” and the speaker stack bungied down but still swaying alarmingly as a thousand feet left the ground, came down, went up again: “And you ain’t got no soul power.”  And there was “Our Riotous Defects” in the encore (there was also “American the Beautiful” and, earlier, a cover of “My Funny Valentine” that went off like a charm). I tend to shoot at slow speed in clubs to compensate for my ultra-zoom’s lack of light-gathering, timing shots as a singer pauses at the mic–Kevin Barnes doesn’t pause. You could power supply a small town from his kinetic energy onstage. That’s what’s missing when you read his stream-of-surreal-consciousness lyrics there at your computer, I discovered, is the dance beats, and the ballsy funk showman in the short red skirt. Whatever else you take away from a concert like this, somewhere in your heart will be a cheerful social anarchist, sweating and well-pleased.