Avey Tare is who drew everyone there, but the audience got an eyeful of an experience before him.
The opener, Seattle’s Jabon, was of a specific and particular taste. Concealed by a ceremonial cloak similar to those of the ritualistic Ordo Templi Orientis and a painted mask combining the pattern styles of Insane Clown Posse and Guy Fawkes, Jabon’s whole schtick was like some weird, lucid, late-night Adult Swim commercial. Musically, he mixed the heavily tech-based sounds of Black Moth Super Rainbow with the slight mainstream pop accessibility of Animal Collective in what he describes to be “dark ambient avant-garde disco comedy.”
Comedic indeed he pranced about the stage with the same energy as an overly gesturing drunk uncle at a family reunion, adding a bit of jocular flair that peeked through the buildup from the fog machine. At one point, he read a couple of pages from a children’s book he claims to have written himself before spouting an attempt at a spoken word ditty about different types of pasta.
He made eye contact with someone in the audience, presumably a friend, wearing a sparkling gold tracksuit and a full-face frowning alien mask. The alien projected shock and confusion through its body language, but not any more than the rest of the audience, who weren’t expecting anything weirder than what Avey Tare is known for.