Of Montreal's Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer is one of the smartest pop albums in years, and the band's long had a reputation as a killer live act, so I was thrilled when I finally got a chance to catch them this summer at the Pitchfork Music Festival. My excitement, though, was short lived. The sound was garbled and the crowd was so vast it was difficult to get a good viewneither of these things are the band's fault, of coursebut the bigger problem was their gimmicky stage show. Between the cheap sets, the staged antics and the endless succession of costumes and creatures that took the stage, posed, then paraded off, their show felt like a second-tier Flaming Lips concert. "They keep presenting things to us," a friend grimaced. It was particular disappointing because unlike the Flaming Lipswhose new material has been less than inspiringOf Montreal are in their prime, still mining new ideas. They didn't need to bury their music behind all that pageantry. Thankfully, they delivered a streamlined show at the Pabst Theater last night that still packed plenty of visual delights. Instead of superfluous costumes, they settled on one very cool set designa tall, light-up stage with three screens projecting trippy animation and a live, effects-distorted feed of the band. It looked like a very expensive early-'80s music video. The acoustics were excellent, and without a costume party to manage, frontman Kevin Barnes was more relaxed and personable. This was the lively Of Montreal show I'd heard so much about. And then there were the opening acts. Grand Buffet, a Pittsburgh duo, play the kind of joke rapexcuse me, "nerdcore hip-hop"that I usually abhor. It's a one-note joke somewhere between Tenacious D and the "Lazy Sunday" video, but the group, whose flows were smoother, more imaginative and more assured than when I last saw them a few years ago, sure won over the crowd with their non-sequiturs about communist Elmo and the Russian's interest in the Mars Cheese Castle. Even I found myself laughing. A lot. The night began with a way-too-long set from the Brooklyn act MGMT, who I'm hesitant to criticize too much because they were little kidswell, maybe not little kids, but I doubt most of them were of drinking age. They played irony-laden throwbacks to the '70s, riffing on Bee Gees disco and Peter Frampton-ish FM rock, under the assumption that falsetto vocals are endless amusing (also amusing to the band? Milwaukee's Bong Recreation Area. Get it?) It was all too smug for my tastes, although maybe it would have fared better coming from a group older and not so snot-nosed. The bigger problem, though, was that they could barely playthe guitarists in particular had only a remedial grasp of their instruments, and they tediously pounded out bar chord after bar chord, stretching the songs out to insufferable lengths. This is the type of band that could regroup in a few years and blow everyone's mindsafter all, The Stokes began as insufferable, entitled New Yorkersbut for now, MGMT are way too green to be playing for a crowd this size.
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