OF MONTREAL @ Irving Plaza – 3/9, 3/10

Athens, GA madman Kevin Barnes and his merry band will be invading the Irving Plaza this weekend and you will have a chance to see a real spectacle of a show. Ever since Barnes virtually hijacked Of Montreal and made it his own, they have gotten considerably weirder than they originally were on their Bar/None releases. In fact, Barnes may very well be the weirdest of the former Elephant 6 consortium and that, my friends, is saying a lot. Case in point, earlier this tour, Barnes’ penis made its on stage debut, much to the chagrin of a Las Vegas crowd. Let’s hope this doesn’t happen again. The eccentricities are not all bad, though. Their newest release on Polyvinyl, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? is a much more mature album in terms of subject matter than their two previous critically acclaimed albums, Satanic Panic in the Attic, and The Sunlandic Twins, but the danceable, upbeat compositions and hyper-intellectual lyrics remain well in tact. We may never know why the bizarre Barnes felt it necessary to whip out his wanker on stage, but it could have just been another Outback Steakhouse advertisement.

RIYL: Olivia Tremor Control, Marshmallow Coast, Apples in Stereo, Elf Power