{"id":1020,"date":"2020-10-12T23:52:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T23:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=1020"},"modified":"2026-06-27T23:54:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T23:54:17","slug":"of-montreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=1020","title":{"rendered":"of Montreal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

August 2006, 40 Watt, Athens, Ga.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I remember the day after this show, standing in line for coffee at Hot Corner (which is now a beer hall called Trappeze) behind a group of people with glitter on their faces. I looked at Kristen and we quickly realized it was of Montreal, and we had a little laugh. It\u2019s not a common occurrence, seeing the band you watched the night before, casually getting coffee the following morning. Unless of course you live in Athens.<\/p>\n

I had not seen of Montreal before this date, though the Athens band was no stranger to the 40 Watt, but this time in the band\u2019s history saw it reaching unparalleled levels of popularity. Like it or not, the Outback Steakhouse song (called \u201cWraith Pinned to the Mist (And Other Games)\u201d), brought new attention to the band. It also had back-to-back albums \u2014 2004\u2019s Satanic Panic in the Attic<\/em> and 2005\u2019s The Sunlandic Twins<\/em> \u2014 which saw bandleader Kevin Barnes at a creative apex. Of Montreal toured the world and won crowds over with a live show nothing short of a bacchanal.<\/p>\n

Since this time I\u2019ve seen of Montreal several times at the Watt \u2014 it always plays there a couple times a year \u2014 and it\u2019s always a packed affair, with a costume party, free-flowing liquor tilt to it. This August 2006 show, nearly coinciding with the start of fall classes at UGA, was unlike many shows I\u2019ve been to. It was a moving mass of dancing bodies, splashing beer, and glitter.<\/p>\n

Barnes comes out on stage in a wedding dress and announces, too much shouting delight, that he wants to marry the audience, which of course he does. With the nuptials in place, the band kicks into \u201cWraith Pinned,\u201d and the wedding party was on.<\/p>\n

Of Montreal is one of the few bands whose albums are arranged like live shows, where the tempo of the audience dictates the next song. It\u2019s also one of those bands where I recognize songs solely by tempo and not by name, because remembering what \u201cOld People In the Cemetery,\u201d \u201cRapture Rapes the Muses\u201d and \u201cBunny Ain\u2019t No Kind of Rider\u201d is never gonna happen.<\/p>\n

I found some MP3s of the show online, which confirmed some names of songs, but really the show was one long jump for joy in a sweaty 40 Watt. The main set ended with \u201cSo Begins Our Alabee,\u201d another song from Sunlandic Twins<\/em> which gained worldwide popularity. After a three-song encore the crowd was more than satisfied, for another night the band fulfilled its mission of leaving the crowd in a happy daze.<\/p>\n

And besides, of Montreal would be back soon enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August 2006, 40 Watt, Athens, Ga. I remember the day after this show, standing in line for coffee at Hot Corner (which is now a beer hall called Trappeze) behind a group of people with glitter on their faces. I looked at Kristen and we quickly realized it was of Montreal, and we had a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":491,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[45,191],"class_list":["post-1020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-40-watt","tag-of-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1021,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions\/1021"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}