Monsters of Folk seal it with KISS
e was no lack of sweetly surreal moments at Saturday night's Monsters of Folk show, from a ninja assassin swaying gently to a soft ballad to a 6-foot rabbit trying to hump Gene Simmons' leg. Maybe the band should play only Halloween gigs from now on, because everything else is surely downhill from here. Or at least a lot less colorful.
Jim James, M. Ward, Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis and the fifth Folk, Will Johnson, could easily have gotten by with their standard 21/2-hour set at the Louisville Palace. But in honor of the occasion, they delivered an 
They opened with “Detroit Rock City” and closed with “Rock and Roll All Nite,” leaving the crowd wanting more. But the love gun was out of ammo. The boys were spent.
Another song would have been too dangerous, anyway. Oberst, as Paul Stanley, nearly broke an ankle trying to negotiate his 8-inch heels, and his rock star climb onto the drum riser looked more like a geriatric trying to get out of his Hoveround. Their point was well made, however; Monsters of Folk is a band of serious musicians who don't take themselves seriously, at least not all of the time.
There were plenty of big moments, sans greasepaint.
The band was on a carousel all night, trading off instruments and songs with equal ease as the members worked through material from the recent “Monsters of Folk” album and their own catalogs from Bright Eyes, My Morning Jacket and Ward's string of solo albums.
Some of the MoF songs, especially “Say Please” and “Losin Yo Head,” got an extra shot of rock 'n' roll dynamics, while others grew more stately (“His Master's Voice”).
Non-Monsters songs fit seamlessly, with the singers often teaming up to dramatic effect. James and Oberst shared a beautiful version of My Morning Jacket's “I Will Be There When You Die,” for example, and a full-band version of MMJ's “Smokin From Shootin” was the night's most powerful anthem.
Ward was quietly charismatic while in the spotlight, with an authority that sneaked up on you. Oberst was more hit and miss, commanding on songs such as “We Are Nowhere and It Is Now” but tedious on his Dylanesque stuff; think “It's Alright Ma I'm Only on Desolation Row.”
But at the end of the night the only significant problem was speculative — what if Monsters of Folk get so big that its members can't get back to their day jobs? Then again, maybe that's not such a bad problem to have.
Courtesy of The Courier Journal. 2009
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