You don't always have to use glitter to bring the glam, and of Montreal proved this with their moderately stripped-down show at The Ritz in Ybor City with James Husband this past Thursday night. [All photos by Mike Wilson.]

James Husband is the solo recording project of James Higgins III, of Montreal’s dark-haired drummer/multi-instrumentalist. As a frontman, he turned on the suave charm, and sang and played guitar backed by a ensemble that included of Montreal members Dottie Alexander on keys, and Davey Pierce on bass and drums. On tour in support of his 2009 Polyvinyl release, A Parallax I, his sound mixed '60s psyche rock with New Wave-flavored electronics. When I arrived, Kevin Barnes was doing unobtrusive drum duty while Higgins strutted around the stage dressed like a young yuppie in his black-and-white-checked button-down shirt, messy red-dotted tie, and white slacks, occasionally picking up a shaker to bring some tongue-and-cheeky percussion to his band’s sound.

A tiger-masked performer appeared on stage at around 9:50 p.m. to herald the band's appearance, Kevin Barnes making a casually grand entrance in a white tee and suspenders and a tiny cut-off skirt (or were they shorts?), his eyes painted in teal eyeliner that matched his tattered teal tights, and a blue flower-petal collar fastened around his neck.

The band (on what I refer to as an in-between-albums tour) had shed aux drummer Ahmed Gallab and returned to the core five-piece lineup, their stage show becoming a more straightforward affair – well, as straightforward as an of Montreal show can get, anyway. The pair of huge screens were still mounted behind the band and the dazzling projections of kaleidoscopic imagery, geometric animations, and bizarre cartoon characters were interrupted by live video streams as recorded onstage by the scaled-down troupe of extras.

This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2010.