By: Ryan Ruff Smith
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Girl Talk - Photo by Steve Cohen
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My brother Daniel and I got home at about 2:30 AM and realized that we had spent almost nine hours concert-going. That adds up to a full workday’s worth of rocking out, with a lunch break. Much like an actual workday, it started a bit rough.
We were confronted with the antics of Grand Buffet, a duo who introduced themselves as being “from the internet.” This rang woefully true; their buffoonish Beastie Boys-aping satirical rap was about as entertaining as a homemade YouTube video that you wouldn’t bother to forward to anyone. Oscar Wilde famously quipped, “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.” I would add that it only gets lower as it gets more overt; anyone who has to inform their audience that a song is satirical is not doing their job on the writing and performing end.
Of Montreal’s better-developed theatricality proved a welcome contrast. Their eye-popping stage set up was a large-scale construction of raised platforms with rectangular quadrants that lit up like a sort of expressionistic city skyline. Their outlandish outfits and make-up were already familiar to anyone who had seen the band recently, as were the surreal animated images projected on a large screen behind them. All of these different elements came together to provide the perfect visual accompaniment to the band’s increasingly dance-oriented pop music.
Unfortunately, the mix sounded a bit muddy (especially for the first few tunes), and it was difficult to pick out many of the subtle details that make the songs compelling. The current incarnation of the band only plays songs from the last three Of Montreal LPs, and though I would have given a tooth to hear some of the band’s emotionally simple and compositionally sophisticated earlier work, I was surrendered to the fact that it wouldn’t happen.
Of Montreal had already hit First Avenue once since the release of their latest album Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer, so they kept things fresh by playing some new songs. These newer compositions were even more challenging than the departure that marked Hissing Fauna, changing mercurially without a distinct structure. But Kevin Barnes, the auteur behind the group, used his effortless stage presence to put the material across.
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Dan Deacon - Photo by Steve Cohen
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The highlights were definitely the more familiar tunes though. “Gronlandic Edit” was an early highpoint, with Barnes showing off his vocal prowess. At the climax of the song, he held a ridiculously high note as the rest of the band stacked harmonies up on top of it. “Suffer For Fashion,” the spastic opening track from Hissing Fauna, is a more guitar-driven song and had a nice edge compared to the more dance-oriented tunes. “She’s a Rejecter” mined similar territory, and the high drama of the chorus was perfectly suited to their live presentation.
The band left the crowd with a stellar encore performance of “Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse,” one of the catchier tunes from Hissing Fauna. It was an impressive show, but with the late show still ahead of us, I had a feeling that we were just getting warmed up.
After grabbing some half-priced appetizers and coffee at Applebee’s (a much-needed energy boost), we moseyed back over to First Avenue and got back in line. There were already a lot of people lined up at the doors and the excitement was palpable. By the time we made it inside, the first act, The Show Is the Rainbow, was already in the midst of his set. A one-man band fronted by Darren Keen, The Show Is the Rainbow explored the same satirical territory as Grand Buffet, only more cleverly—and shirtlessly. “Speaking of bullshit music,” Keen was saying as we entered the mainroom, “this is a song I wrote about Bright Eyes.” The rest of his set focused on similar indie culture references and criticism.
We squeezed into the midst of the crowd excitedly as electronic pop eccentric Dan Deacon was setting up. Rather than performing on the stage, he opted to set up on the floor right in front of it. This meant that only the people in the very front could see him at all, but it added an exciting communal energy to his set. He was very much about crowd participation—he sound checked in front of us and then asked whether we would rather he start with a song that has a slowly building crescendo, or just jump right in dancing. The crowd made it clear that they were ready to dance and he obliged by kicking into “Okie Dokie” from his Spiderman of the Rings album. The crowd was absolutely manic— dancing, jumping and pushing ecstatically. Though the energy was exciting, Deacon seemed concerned that some over-enthusiastic fan would crash into his equipment, after all, he was right down there with us.
A couple of songs into his set, he asked the board operator to bring up the house lights (I don’t think I have ever seen First Avenue with the lights up before. It was strange). He then directed everyone to back up and create a large circle in the middle for a dance off. His enthusiasm in making the show a fun experience was great, but the dance off quickly dissolved into a free for all and the circle closed back up. I’m not sure exactly what it was—perhaps the strange excitement of having this supercharged, electric music coming from an unseen source—but the energy in the room was absolutely insatiable. Deacon ended up cutting his set short to get his equipment out of peril, but it was still one of the most unique concert experiences I have ever had, and the first show in ages that felt like something truly new.
Minneapolis native and YouTube cult figure Tay Zonday was up next, and I used his set as a bit of breather before the onslaught of Girl Talk. The internet seemed to factor largely into the entire evening; its affect on the music world is undeniable. Tay Zonday, best known for his surreal and extremely repetitive song “Chocolate Rain,” delivered several original songs in person accompanied by prerecorded instrumental tracks. His deep baritone voice is striking, and his writing certainly is idiosyncratic, but his place on this bill was a bit puzzling.
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Tay Zonday - Photo by Steve Cohen
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After the set break, Girl Talk (aka Greg Gillis) took the stage to an enthusiastic ovation. As he got himself stationed behind his laptop, he asked that everyone just have a great time dancing and not do any pushing. Remarkably, the crowd listened to him, apparently having gotten that out of their system during Dan Deacon’s set. People were certainly ready to dance, though. After a series of reserved indie shows, it was a thrill to see an entire First Avenue crowd moving.
But then again, we had little choice. Girl Talk is dance music in the purest sense of the term. Splicing together countless samples from pop, rock, rap and indie music, Gillis created seamless dance tracks that take on a personality all their own. He went far beyond the simple concept of “mash ups” (in which two songs are combined) to create complex pieces that weave disparate strands of popular music together into a jubilant, heavy-hitting whole. When you are on the dance floor, nothing is more exciting than hearing a song that you recognize…. Imagine hearing two or three at the same time.
But it certainly goes beyond a simple “name that tune” game—Gillis sampled such a wide variety of music that I certainly did not recognize all of it. This definitely didn’t diminish his performance, as the music was almost as exciting when it wasn’t recognizable. But then something familiar would slip into the mix and raise the excitement even more: “Whoa, was that Cindy Lauper? It totally was!”
The most thrilling moment of the show though, was the result of Gillis toying with our expectations. He started playing the verse to Kelly Clarkson’s “Since You’ve Been Gone” over a spare beat. As the end of the verse neared, the tension began to build. Would he give us the chorus? Or would he segue into something else? “Since You’ve Been Gone” was the perfect choice; the melody pushes relentlessly towards the chorus and just begs to be resolved. By setting it up and then detouring into another song, he could have left the tension hanging in the air. But instead he capitulated, throwing a huge beat under the vocal as the chorus kicked in. The payoff was twice as big because of the suspense.
After a mostly non-stop set, Gillis paused to ask us if we wanted some more. The sound guy informed him that he just had ten minutes left to play. Thankfully, he didn’t bother with the nonsense of leaving the stage to come back for the encore. He just kept pushing it into the red until the last minute. His final mix included one of the best moments from his Night Ripper album—a combination of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” and a Notorious B.I.G. rap verse. He mixed it differently than it appears on the album though, exploring a new way the two songs could intersect.
We shuffled out of First Avenue almost nine hours after we had first arrived. The soles of our shoes were soaked in spilled beer and studded with broken glass. We were exhausted, but our spirits were high. What had started out as another night at First Avenue had turned into the dance party of a lifetime, and it was worth every minute.
Location Info:
First Avenue
Artist Info: Dan Deacon, Girl Talk, Grand Buffet, Of Montreal, Tay Zonday, The Show is the Rainbow
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