Of Montreal Cause Pain With Lamping

Regardless of whether or not you're into the music, when you buy a ticket to see Of Montreal, you're not really paying for the actual "music." The Georgians have built up quite a reputation for their wildly flamboyant stage antics, and it definitely helps mask the fact that their multi-layered songs don't come across quite as strong in a live setting.

Despite the promise of a fantastical show, a number of things failed on a few levels, which rendered the band's gig at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre tepid at best. With abysmal sound, an unenthusiastic crowd and an uncharacteristic lack of energy from frontman Kevin Barnes, the show was a surprising disappointment.

It certainly didn't help that Of Montreal's set list stuck far too closely to their almost offensively bad new album, Skeletal Lamping. After a string of excellent releases — 2004's Satanic Panic In The Attic, 2005's The Sunlandic Twins and 2007's Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? — Skeletal Lamping doesn't just disappoint, it completely stunts the growth Barnes has shown in the last few years.

Since most of the new tunes go absolutely nowhere, you'd expect them to be beefed up and re-energized in concert. This was partly true, as the addition of two drummers made certain tracks much more immediate than on disc, but the sound at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre was muddy and the mix was uniformly bad.

Barnes seemed preoccupied and disinterested in the performance, which may have been due to the fact that the theatre was barely at half capacity, and those who showed up evidently didn't come to party. Whatever the reason, the frontman kept the banter to a minimum, which only exacerbated the rift between band and audience.

This could have been avoided if three things were considered: a venue change, a slightly lower ticket price and a longer set list that included songs people actually like. Only a couple of new songs got much response from the crowd, while older cuts like "Disconnect The Dots" or even the interludes from The Sunlandic Twins received uproarious applause. The exclusion of favourites "The Party's Crashing Us" and "Lysergic Bliss" seemed ludicrous, especially when they've been staples in the past.

The absurdities on stage were still enough to keep people entertained, but the lack of solid tunes opened an ever-increasing chasm between solid music and ridiculous stage show as time went on. The props were far more meticulously crafted than the last time the band came to town, with some great gags happening every so often. But by the end of it, seeing Barnes get covered in soap as a guy in assless chaps pranced around wasn't nearly as funny as it sounded.

The only legitimately fun moment came in the form of their encore, where the band performed Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in its entirety, and even this ran its course somewhat quickly. It was a laugh at first, but the crowd obviously wanted more of their old songs. When the band left the stage for good, it almost negated the goodwill they'd just earned. It certainly didn't beat the string of Bowie covers they pulled out last year at the Opera House.

When a band are touring behind a new album, they're going to play those songs predominantly, but Barnes and company either need to write a better record and tour behind that, or realize that their old songs are exponentially better than anything on Skeletal Lamping. When a record is so bad that it detrimentally affects one of the most entertaining live bands around, you know something's wrong.