Photo credits: Courtesy of the artist<\/p>\n
Review by: Owen Butler<\/p>\n
What will the world look like in 5 billion years, as Earth is on the brink of devastation as the sun begins to engulf the planet? My guess: a little like an of Montreal show. For the night, the Royale became the epicenter of lead singer Kevin Barnes\u2019 sonic and tectonic disruption. Despite the show\u2019s dystopian focus, of Montreal is on tour celebrating the 20<\/span>th<\/span> anniversary of their seventh studio album, The Sunlandic Twins. Earlier this year, the band released a four-disc, 53-track 20<\/span>th<\/span> Anniversary Edition of the album, steeped in remastered tracks, outtakes, live performances, remixes, and de-mixes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As the lead singer and indie-pop icon, Kevin Barnes, dressed in a silken pink suit, scurried on stage, the venue travelled both forwards and backwards in time to a 2005 conception of the distant future. On stage, keyboardist Dojo Glidewell, drummer Clayton Rychlik, and bassist Ross Brand were accompanied (in presence and outfit) by a troop of outlandish dancers, dressed as burlesque ravens, a martial skeleton god, and <\/span>the <\/span><\/i>Sunlandic Twins. The show innovatively utilized projection lighting, blank props, and costumes to transform the simple set into characters and settings from an astro-steam-punk Alice in Wonderland. Unafraid of what lies within the grooves of reality, the band can craft alternate realities on stage, a sonic and visual playpen for your imagination to run loose. Of Montreal\u2019s images lit up the venue\u2019s many screens, both on the walls and ceiling, with macro photography images of fly eyes, kittens, and flowers flashing between waves of 2005 Microsoft Paint illustrations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n On an album anniversary tour, the setlist is rather predictable; if it\u2019s not performed in sequential order, the range of songs rarely strays further than the album\u2019s track list. Accordingly, the crowd\u2019s energy was irreplicable, sustained over 20 years to hear their favorites from <\/span>Twins<\/span><\/i> given prime spotlight among of Montreal\u2019s dense and prolific discography. Despite this, that night, not much else in the music hall was predictable, save for the crowd\u2019s rangily, wacky-inflatable-flailing-arm-tube-man dance moves. During the crowd favorite \u201cThe Party\u2019s Crashing Us,\u201d only a few heads were stationary in a sea of bobbing counterparts. Barnes\u2019 absurdist-yet-universal lyrics and undeniably groovy synth lines had women in corporate clothing dancing alongside college-aged kids in thrifted Hunter boots.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Searching for meaning in the show\u2019s absurdity, I blurred my eyes to the show\u2019s eccentricities, to its thematically unintelligible animations and dancers. I couldn\u2019t explain what was happening in front of me on stage, but maybe it could explain itself to me. What I was left with was an odyssey following a nameless character Barnes assumed for the night as they navigated post-post-modern love, twisted humanity, and their mortal coil in a world where the sun is not too far from engulfing all we know. In the face of utter destruction, the show illustrated that we today should be less concerned about the sun in 5 billion years and instead discover the sun within ourselves, as illustrated on the album\u2019s cover.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For the last few songs and the encore, Barnes was joined by long-time collaborator and friend of the band, Elizabeth Wheeler, in wig and costume. Donning an audience member\u2019s Transgender flag as an over-the-shoulder scarf, Wheeler acted as Barnes\u2019s sunlandic twin, singing beautiful harmonies over his tenor warbling. The encore included B-sides to the album that were never performed live, including the heartwarming \u201cFamily Nouveau.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Throughout the show, I was debating with myself just how similar a Bowie show might have been in the 70s, with its unforgiving colors and abrasive optimism. I feared I was being too young and na\u00efve, drawing too heavily a connection between two eccentric, gender-bending, guitar-slinging glam-rock figures. However, I was given passing validation as Barnes and Wheeler began the final encore song, a cover of \u201cSuffragette City\u201d by the one and only Bowie.\u00a0 As he did at the end of every song, Barnes gave his final shy but well-rehearsed \u201cthank you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Photo credits: Courtesy of the artist Review by: Owen Butler What will the world look like in 5 billion years, as Earth is on the brink of devastation as the sun begins to engulf the planet? My guess: a little like an of Montreal show. For the night, the Royale became the epicenter of lead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21925,"featured_media":47652,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1525,1523,15],"tags":[351,138],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21925"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47653,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47651\/revisions\/47653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}