Cool Pictures Of Cartoon Football Players images

dec 4 2008: 60/365

Image by megan.barton
Of Montreal performing at The Moon.

I saw Of Montreal the first time they came to Tallahassee, around a year and a half ago. The show was insane. It literally felt like a non-drug induced acid trip; the next day, my friend Kathryn & I were too overstimulated to watch TV or listen to anything beyond classical music.

After seeing that show, and scanning an interview with the lead singer, I expected this show to be completely out of control. Honestly, in my opinion, it border-lined on entirely disturbing.

It began with the usual: All of the band members run out on stage dressed in funny costumes (none of which relate to each other -- just totally random), and there is a screen in the background with all sorts of designs, cartoons, and sometimes displaying the output of what seems to be a camera on the stage. There are crazy flashing lights and a swivel, three-panel wall moveable type thing on stage and two drum sets and balloons and glitter and confetti and at this point I am getting really stressed out.

Throughout the concert (because it is literally IMPOSSIBLE to recount this chronologically or systematically since it lacks any structure of the sort), the lead singer changed at least five times. He is seen above in his glittery jacket, not-even-long-enough-to-be-considered-tinyshorts-shorts, women's shoes, and blue glasses**. Other than that, he wore really tight pants and a white half-length fur. He also dressed up as a horse and had another band member in the costume with him to act as the hind legs. He ALSO (and here is the disturbing part) came on stage in a short bathrobe and proceeded to put a noose around his neck and hang himself. There was also a point where I think all he was wearing were the tiny underwear shorts things and some of the other people on stage painted his body red (with their hands) and threw confetti on him. At the very end, he appeared in an open coffin, standing upright facing the audience, covered in shaving cream (and I'm hoping, still hoping, that he at least had a nude bodysuit on underneath that).

Oh gosh, what else. There were crazy aliens and martians and people with ginormous oversized limbs made out of what looked like paper mache. There were people dressed up like pigs and tigers and unrecognizables. There were cheerleaders and football players and people in just nude colored body suits playing with beach balls in the swirling confetti. Between all of this, as I mentioned, the flashing strobe lights, the changing colors, the screen with cartoons, the people running around stage, the MUSIC, oh god the music, the noise was constant, never ceasing. Even between "scene changes" and costume changes, some amount of instrumentalists remained on stage playing songs.

By the end I was exhausted. It honestly felt terrible to stand there the entire time and watch it. There was a certain point in the night up to which I was fine. I felt that limit dissolve yet I stayed anyway. It was like a train wreck you couldn't tear your eyes away from. Even though it hurt to keep watching, you did it anyway.

I just stood there thinking "what in the world is going on in this guy's head that he feels the need to do this? In all seriousness - what happened to this poor soul in his childhood that could cause such...I don't even know what to call it, trauma, maybe?" Because as celebratory as Of Montreal would like to be, I can see through it. I can see the driving pull for attention, the desperate need to be seen and the even more desperate desire to cover that up in costumes and distractions. I felt like I could feel his hurt. Assuming that hurt exists, anyway. Personally, I'm under the assumption that it does exist for everyone, in one way or another, whether or not you choose to acknowledge it. but that's a whole 'nother rant... isn't it?


**A few [non-rant-related] notes about the actual photo: I was standing very close to the stage, but right underneath the keyboard player. Therefore, all of my pictures were either taken by setting my camera, and doing a "blindshot" by reaching up with my hand, or, by struggling to capture swiftly moving people through the wires and bottom of her piano stand legs. To the right of the singer, you are seeing that keyboard stand, with the tambourine hanging from it and wires wrapped around. Also, in the bottom of the picture, you can see the top of her [the keyboard players'] Newcastle and water bottle. Just fyi.
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Another thing I would like to say: It's one thing to look at someone else and say "you're fucked-up. everyone can see it." It's an entirely different thing to see that in yourself, or to have someone else say it to you. With that in mind, it's my hope that my life will include the grace-filled and painful moments of honesty either from myself or others. Okay, I don't actually believe that last statement all of the time, but two seconds ago when I wrote it, I did. So it's there.