[ATTENDED: September 27, 2022] The Mars Volta
Back in 2000, I loved At the Drive In. I was bummed when they broke up. However, they split into two bands: Sparta (the more streamlined guys) and The Mars Volta (the wacky prog rockers). I was pretty psyched to hear TMV and their debut album De‐Loused in the Comatorium was amazingly weird and cool. I also really liked the follow up Frances the Mute, but kind of lost track of them after that.
They broke up at some point and that was that. Guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López went on to do a million projects (like playing with Teri Gender Bender) and singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala has appeared all over the place in bands and as a guest. i didn’t really give them much thought until they announced a new song and tour. So I pulled out De-Loused and remembered how much I liked them.
This tour was apparently designed just for me, since most of the songs were from De-Loused and Frances, with one song from the other albums and two from the new one.
The light show was pretty great. They had squares of light bulbs that illuminated shapes and showed various LED colors. Not to mention super bright strobes and lots of searching beams of colors.
More impressively, Omar Rodríguez-López’s guitar was even better than I had remembered. He did a few segments were he just soloed for two or three minutes that never felt showoffy. And, actually, even more impressive than that was Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s voice. He can still hit those incredible high notes.
They opened with a song that has a lengthy moody opening. Omar played soundscapes and solos and then Cedric started singing the slow trippy opening. And after about ten minutes of that and me thinking…huh, is this the kind of stuff they are gonna play, they shifted gears and launched into the ferocious 7 minute “Roulette Dares” from De-Loused. This song has more shifts and turns than you can count. As well as the super catchy “Exoskeletal junction at the railroad delayed” impenetrable lyric.
They jumped to later in the album for “Eriatarka” a slower (at first) song that jumps and pounds with frenetic energy.
When I first heard the new song “Blacklight Shine” it was via an 11 minute video that was as wild as it was trippy, even though when all was said and done, the song itself was not even three minutes. Similarly “Graveyard Love” has a super long video attached to it, even though the song itself is only 3 minutes and is very keyboard heavy and rather poppy. There’s lots of bass and very little guitar or time changes. But it’s rather catchy. And the band made it sound like it could be a mellow part of another song.
Bassist Josh Moreau kept the low end perfect. And keyboard players Marcel Rodriguez-López (also percussion), and Leo Genovese were essential–keeping all of the sounds aloft and very very dense. And drummer Linda-Philomène Tsoungui who was a blur of sticks and smacks and fills.
Probably the most amazing song was from Frances the Mute. “L’Via L’Viaquez,” is sung in Spanish with some great soaring vocals and a grooving riff. After 90 seconds, the song shifts gears into a slow Latin groove. On record the shift is smooth, but live it was intense–abrupt and almost shocking the way the band could shift gears so seamlessly. Especially when Omar can suddenly throw down a screaming solo and shove the song back in to that earlier groove. The drumming is especially intense on this song.
They played only one song from Noctourniquet, the mellow ballad “Empty Vessels Make the Loudest Sound.” It gave the band a chance to settle down–except for Omar who played some wild soloing while the rest of the band was keeping a slow pace.
The song shifted to another Frances song as they started the epic “Cygnus….Vismund Cygnus” (how can you not think of Rush with a name like that). I mean, sure it starts quietly… But it’s 13 minutes long and there’s all kinds of parts and soaring vocals and guitars. And it was perfect.
It segued into “Blacklight Shine” a slow, quite pretty song which, being barely 3 minutes, sounded like a perfect segue between prog epics as they followed it up with the seven minute “Drunkship of Lanterns.” This song also gave Omar some freedom to play some wild soloing on his guitar.
Then after one more song from Frances, the reasonably short but soaring and powerful “The Widow,” it was all De-Loused until the end. Starting with “Cicatriz ESP” (just another 12 minute epic), they swooped into the slower, trippy “Televators” and soared back out with “Son et lumiere” the 90 second opening to the album which segued, as the album does, into “Inertiatic ESP” one of the catchiest songs they’ve released.
And after what felt like ten hours and also like thirty seconds, The Mars Volta were done. It was an amazing show.
- Vicarious Atonement ∇
- Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of) ≅
- Eriatarka ≅
- Graveyard Love √
- L’Via L’Viaquez ⊕
- Empty Vessels Make the Loudest Sound ⊄
- Cygnus….Vismund Cygnus ⊕
- Blacklight Shine √
- Drunkship of Lanterns ≅
- The Widow ⊕
- Cicatriz ESP ≅
- Televators ≅
- Son et lumiere ≅
- Inertiatic ESP ≅
≅ De‐Loused in the Comatorium (2003)
⊕ Frances the Mute (2005)
∇ Amputechture (2006)
⊄ Noctourniquet (2012)
√ The Mars Volta (2022)
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