Monday, Oct. 27, 2003 | 20:28
The Mars Volta @ The Riviera
apologies for the extreme lateness of this. on the night the cubs lost what should have been their fourth win in the league championship series, i attended the Mars Volta concert at the Riviera. it kicked ass. well, i thought so. unfortunately it also bored nikki to tears.
on walking in, the opener, slam poet Saul Williams, was reciting his poem from Krust's Coded Language album. "motherfuckers better realize!" then he talked a bit about the state of the nation, which led into a selection from his new book, which is an epic poem about a guy prophesying the return of Kali. it was awesome, as was his final poem, written for his cousin. he made a few comments about being his own band, and then about how great The Mars Volta would be, and went on his way.
then came The Mars Volta. i have to admit i don't really know their album, De-Loused In The Comatorium, but i know it's basically arty prog-rock with punk touches, a concept album about a dead friend who o.d.'d on heroin. it has some long tracks where the players stretch out and explore. it gets kinda self indulgent, but remains interesting. their show was like that, but longer.
this is where nikki and i disagree on music. i like the fact that in 2 hours they played only 8 songs, two of which were 20 to 30 minute extended jams. that doesn't include the 5 minute bass solo where everyone else left the stage and the audience wasn't really sure what was going on. the show rocked. but nikki didn't think so.
Cedric Bixler-Zavala has obviously studied James Brown's dance techniques, jittering around stage on his twitching feet, pulling splits and spins now and then. he threw in a bunch of arena rock moves, like swinging the mic and throwing it out just to pull it back between lines. i wanted to say robert plant or steve tyler, but i'm not sure those are the singers i'm looking for. someone from the seventies, though. while he was dancing, the drummer kept great time, throwing in fills and mini-solos wherever he could. the keyboardist really jammed. the guitarist was all over the place, though to be honest i can't say his solos were very inviting. i would have liked a bit more melody from him, a bit less dischord and chaos. then there was an auxilliary percussionist who seemed to alternate between shakers and congas, though he wasn't miked and didn't look very into the show.
i think what did it for me was during the third song, which was easily half an hour long, when they seamlessly transformed from a noisy space rock band to a soulful funk band to a spastic arena rock behemoth. though sometimes the loss of a good groove was disappointing, the transitions went well. at times there seemed to be too much going on, as though the band still needs more time improvising together. they still have some rough spots.
after the first long jam, nikki left in search of the car, but i persevered to enjoy the rest of the show. it was enjoyable--though i suspect i would have enjoyed it more had i known the songs better. next ime.
