GIG REVIEW: The Mars Volta
- Posted on July 23, 2008 3:22 PM
- 0 comments
The Mars Volta
The Roundhouse, London
17th July 2008
Review by Bryce Lowry
Surely it’s illegal? Within four bars of opener ‘Goliath’ my jaw was straight back on the floor at my feet where the Californian 8-piece had left it in Brixton back in March. Even if you know their albums and have seen them before, nothing prepares you for the sonic assault of The Mars Volta. A tsunami of sound, it’s like having your ears force-fed metal, funk, blues, jazz, latin and every other aural spice from the rack all at once until your brain vaporises into a multi-dimensional rock vortex. Somehow though, it’s all flawless. I gasped and giggled my way through the next few minutes at the sheer preposterousness of what I was hearing – there was ample time to recover though, the song went for over 20 minutes.
The visual intensity of the band’s performance is no less dizzying, and it has nothing to with the lights or staging which is static. As well as carving an eye watering guitar – you wonder if the Devil sold his soul to him - Omar Rodriguez-Lopez leads his troupe in a cacophony of movement. Cedric Bixler-Zavala is a show unto himself. With the yowl of Robert Plant, the sexual ambiguity of Patti Smith, Cher’s hair and the dirty, loping cool of Joey Ramone, he struts and dances like a man possessed; leaping off the drums, dropping the splits and nailing routines with his microphone with the precision of a rhythmic gymnast. Vocally, tonight he was definitely on. All the falsetto notes were hit and then some. There was far more soul and depth to his voice than is apparent on record where it can be overly textured and layered and too deliberately weird. Most astounding though was the recently recruited drummer Thomas Pridgen. He drives the show with one of the most blistering and powerhouse performances you will ever witness. I could only watch him for a moment before I was exhausted. How he did that for over two hours? Well, that’s just as difficult to fathom as the rest of the show really.
Pieces from the latest album The Bedlam In Goliath were the focus of the night along with a ferocious rendition of Viscera Eyes, Meccamputecture, Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus and a Drunkship Of Lanterns finale.
Just like the first time you hear a TMV record you easily get lost amongst, between and inside songs, jams and interludes. Just when you think you’re moving in to the fifth track a reprise alerts you to the fact you are only in the next movement of the third … and you’re on your way to yet another orgasm. It’s a beautiful confusion and you have no choice but to surrender and put your faith in Omar to show the way.
If there was a downside it was that it was just too loud. Half way through I had to fashion ear plugs out of toilet paper which reduced the sharpness of the sound, but there was no way I was going to move.
Only once did they address the crowd; Cedric thanking us “for joining our technicolour dream”. Is that what they call it?
And then they were gone. No encore and barely a bow. I didn’t even applaud. I couldn’t; I was in shock. Genius borders on insanity and standing guard at the crossing is The Mars Volta.
Related links:The Mars Volta concert tickets.
The Mars Volta Official site.
The Mars Volta on MySpace.
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