Ah brighton; sun, sea, sand (well pebbles) and a tiger munching down on a ninja’s crouch before giving him a piledriver, these are the good memories of that time I went down Brighton for some ice cream and an evening of of Montreal playing at Digital.
It wasn’t a hard choice to decide whether i should travel down Brighton to see of Montreal again, the last time I saw them at koko I nearly wept (of course i didnt, being manly and all) at how much fun I had from all the theatrics and musical awesomeness (review here). So there I was, standing in Brighton with Anika ready to do some chicken consuming/sightseeing before heading off to the gig. We had a nice meal at Nando’s and had some ice cream in the freezing cold before heading down to the seaside to queue up for the gig.
There wasn’t many people queuing up for the gig at first, we were surprised at first since there’s usually a big queue in London when of Montreal play a gig. Eventually some more people arrived and we got chatting to some of them, upon entering the venue I managed to catch a girl who had turned up to the gig without a ticket, assuming you could buy them at the sold out show. When informed that the ticket was sold out she started to panic and pleaded that they’d let her in because she had travelled all the way from Romania to see them that day and had no idea what to do if she couldn’t see them, after a few minutes of pleading the guy decided to just let her in. Sounds sweet huh? Unfortunately it turns out she didn’t JUST arrive from Romania, and has used this trick to get into a few gigs (sly).
Casiokids were the support band, they’re a quirky Norwegian electro band. Quite liked a first few songs and was even more amazed at their long and epic cowbell solo! They had a banana shaker which was pretty neat too ;p Check out their myspace if you’re interested in synths and hot chip.
After Casiokids, it was straight to of Montreal, we discussed on whether they could still pull off all the amazing and wild theatrics they did during the koko show despite the stage being fairly small and all. I would have been slightly bummed if they didn’t do any 
(but not too bummed), anyway on with the show.
I was slightly sad that I wasn’t able to catch of Montreal supporting Franz Ferdinand at Heaven but this made it all up. Kevin and the gang arrived in their usual sparkly glam outfits and delivered an intimate and awesome show. The setlist was fairly similar to the one at Koko and featured a fair few songs from Skeletal Lamping, including Mingusings, Id Engager, and their latest single an Elaurdian instance. They also played a lot of oldies including Bunny Ain’t No Kind of Rider, Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse and Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Games (man I keep getting worried if I type these names right).
Here’s a video of them playing An Elaurdian Instance:
I’ve also recorded Id Engager and Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Games if you’re interested. At times I felt it was lacking of drums. During the koko show they had an additional drummer Ahmed to play but he was only there for that tour, they were still able to pull off theatrics during the show including random ninjas in the crowd, semi naked people and even the epic show down with a tiger and a ninja (which equates to piledrivers on stage!). They ended the show with an epic cover of Smells like teen spirit which they replicated quite accurately (in fact most of their covers were pretty spot on). Kevin finished the show by diving into the drums before saying good bye to the crowd. of Montreal once again proved that they’re indeedly the kings (and queens) of putting on a good show and this will defintiely go down as one of my best shows for 2009.
After that I was able to head back home to London. Despite the journey being a 2 hour one, it was definitely worth it! Lets hope they release another album this year and tour again.
