Good Times

So, good times were had, some classes were missed, but all in all, the Mars Volta tore some shit up. Sadly they only played for one hour, then were followed by a huge wait, and then that was followed by the lackluster act called "System of A Down".

If you know me, my favourite band is probably The Mars Volta, and I was a little disappointed such a good band could be opening for such a boring one. The lead singer of SOAD was boring, unenergetic and generally a drag. While some high points of SOAD's set was the fact that even though most of their songs are exactly the same, they did a good job interluding their songs, covering "Sultans of Swing" and changing the lyrics a bit, and doing the same with "My My, Hey Hey" by Neil Young. I would've appreciated some more pep from their older track, but it seemed like everyone around me was getting excited about the "Mezmorize" album, which did nothing for me at all.

What really got me excited was the Mars Volta. TMV, played (from what I remember) only 3 songs. They started out with "L' via L' viaquez", which we caught while just grabbing our seats. It was a very good rendition, with all the instrumentals sound spot on. This track went on for a while until decompressing, and turning into "The Widow". The jam sessions in between the tracks were kept very upbeat, as some of the mostly braindead SOAD fans were growing restless without thrashing guitars and double kick bass drums.

This upbeat nature kept the set very short and sweet, which was nice, because of how far away I was, and the general negative attitude towards TMV around me, it was hard to stay focused on the slower parts of jams. That being said, there were some amazing jams and I am upset that I couldn't get more in to it. One thing I particularity liked was Ikey's excellent keyboard/organ playing.

Ikey had more energy than SOAD's Bass player and lead singer combined, which was extremely entertaining to watch, since it resonated into his playing. While I can't really remember what song included this, but I really a solo Ikey had, where he played on all the counter beats, for atleast 3 measures. This was one of the coolest parts of the whole TMV set, as it really showed TMV's musical diversity, however it set a standard for the rest of the show. I was extremely unimpressed by almost everything SOAD did, and I think Ikey was a main reason for this.

As far as I can remember, or atleast from what I actually saw, the tracks went:
"L' via L' viaquez", "The Widow", "Drunkship Laterns". I have read that they also played "cygnus, vismund cygnus" before hand, but I may've missed it. All the songs were finely tuned to sound enough like the albums where they should, and something completely new exactly where they are needed.

I had a really good time, and TMV didn't disapoint, I was a little sad about how much the T-shirts were. 35 canadians dollars is crazy.

Best Regards,
Bananatree.