September 18, 2009

of Montreal @ Santos Party House, NYC 9/16/09

Ryan Muir

of Montreal

If you wanna do Fashion Week right, there's a simple trick: know which bars all the "beautiful" people will be at, and then avoid them all so hard. It's a simple trick that works wonders if you love to avoid terrible humans. Every so often, though, one of these designers/stores/whathaveyou will throw an afterparty with a musical act that isn't Lady GaGa, and in those case you might tell yourself not to be so closed minded for a change and go have some fun. Especially when that act is of Montreal, who have made a career on suffering for fashion, and whose private performance at Santos for the Refinery29/Thrillist party was repeatedly teased as being full of craziness (actually, "cr8ziness" was the direct quote). The midnight set is a low-rent version of the standard oM spectacle, the band playing for mostly fashionheads but a few superfans who mouthed every word including (impressively) the night's MC, comedian Kurt Braunohler. Not cr8zy.

The 2AM set is another story.

The band returns from setbreak out of their minds on let's say alcohol, and what follows is sloppy, freewheeling, and totally charming. Hipster drifter Solange comes out for two songs ("Love Hangover" and "Heat Wave," a nice primer for the Kevin Barnes + Solange project news we can expect soon). The dancers who were wearing bras and diapers earlier in the night now writhe on sexual torture devices that flank either side of the stage. Somehow Barnes becomes fixated on the lick from "Sweet Child O' Mine," which in turn is the recurring glue (maybe "lube" is more fitting) that pieces together a start-stop, sporadic medley beginning with a demented roll call of CNN talent (Anderson Cooper 360º, Wolf Blitzer, etc.) before moving liberally through Bowie, the Beatles, and Patrick Swayze (R.I.P.). By 3:30AM there are about 20 people left and you can stand no more (literally that is; the performance is a fine mess). So you miss oM's cover of "Footloose," but leave with a fun memory and the makings of a righteous Wednesday hangover.

Ryan Muir brought home these pics of Set One, and here's a setlist compliments of Fluxblog, who had the stamina to stay that last 20 minutes you couldn't:

SET ONE
01 "Mingusings"
02 "Suffer For Fashion"
03 "Sink The Seine"
04 "Cato As A Pun"
05 "Forecast Fascist Future"
06 "Requiem For OMM2"
07 "Rapture Rapes The Muses"
08 "Id Engager"
09 "Faberge Falls For Shuggie"
10 "For Our Elegant Caste"
11 "Touched Something's Hollow"
12 "An Eluardian Instance"
13 "Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse"
14 "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal"

SET TWO
15 "We Were Born The Mutants Again With Leafling"
16 "Bunny Ain't No Kind Of Rider"
17 "Beware Our Nubile Miscreants"
18 "My British Tour Diary"
19 "She's A Rejecter"
20 "Love Hangover" (with Solange)
21 "Heat Wave" (with Solange)
22 "Oslo In The Summertime"
23-30ish Anderson Cooper 360 chant -> very long jam including bits of "Sweet Child O Mine," "Suffragette City," "Daytripper," "She's Like The Wind," "Footloose," and "Don't Let Me Down"

Posted at 2:57 PM by amrit in Concert, Photo
Tags: of Montreal | Solange