: "Of Montreal put on a stage show that was an aural and visual hallucination brought to dazzling life. The six-member band played against a huge backdrop of vivid, psychedelic animations and under washes of saturated lights. Two sets of drums were mounted on risers on either side of the stage and a revolving screen set up between them hid-or-revealed a motley cast of performers, who acted out all manner of scenes and scenarios with and without frontman Kevin Barnes, and in costumes and masks that ranged from cute to freakish. Barnes himself disappeared behind the screen to change outfits a dozen or more times, from fur to sequins to spandex to centaur, a performer serving as his second set of legs for that last ensemble. He covered himself in red paint, in shaving cream, in glitter. He sang and played guitar, pranced from one side of the stage to the other in nothing but a pair of sassy gold trunks, climbed up a riser to sing from its heights or play drums a few minutes, climbed back down to be executed in a faux-gallows, and appeared to have a grand old time all throughout." (Barnes pictured, photo by Phil Bardi.)
For a complete list of Best of the Bay winners, click here.