Weaving through Denver Music, Art, Culture, and Life
[slideshow_deploy id=’6337′] All Photos: Sandisz Thieme for DenverThread Above all, it was Sara Slaton’s voice, softly, confidently thundering over Dustin Morris…
When the stagehand started walking across the Bluebird stage last Tuesday night carrying a plastic bag and handing out bright…
This year, as you’re getting ready to load up on tryptophan, relatives, scotch and football, we’ve got a few recommendations…
One of Denver’s most popular New Year’s Eve parties is about to change. For the first time in about a…
At the risk of eliciting a chorus of jaded groans: Yes, Peter Hook & the Light, led by the bassist…
Kevin Barnes doesn’t need to play the omnisexual androgyne anymore. That was how it felt Sunday night anyway, when Of Montreal played the Bluebird Theater.
While their Sgt. Pepper’ed, more pastoral oeuvre has long since faded, some of the over-the-top erotic energy that the band is known for has also been eschewed in recent years. The pandemonium has calmed, in favor of a much more consistent blend of “Free Your Mind (And Your Ass WIll Follow)” Funkadelic and pre-“Purple Rain” Prince — though there was still a strong undercurrent of Beatles and Bowie. Barnes’ revived focus on the music was obvious, and welcomed.
The stage show was only slightly paired down, really. While previous gigs featured complex stage shows through which Barnes cavorted in Ziggy Stardust androgyny with foxes and pigs, this show was less surrealist burlesque and more glam/funk rock. There were still foxes, giant butterflies and pigs, of course, romping beneath psychedelic geometries projected on the band and colorful live video on a screen above them.
Oh, and there was also a repeating lucha libre theme, this time.
The band’s show at the Bluebird Theater last Sunday night turned out to be a perfect place to show off their emulative prowess, featuring a playlist of songs heavily influenced as much by old school bands like Joy Division, Bauhaus, the Cure and Soft Cell as Interpol and Nine Inch Nails, and with more than a bit of Rick James’ funk.
. . . the five-piece showed the surging Denver throng that it has reached a sort of musical plateau, one where it can perform just about any collection of new, old and really old material with aplomb and brilliance. They can whip any crowd into a throbbing fury, and then easily coax it back into placidity.
