Saw The Mars Volta on the weekend

[mitchables]

And they were simply incredible. Hands down, the best concert I have ever been to. The sound was a bit shitty at the start (the mix was way too loud for everything except the drums, so there wasn't much clarity) but either I adjusted or they fixed the mix about 20 minutes in because after that I could hear everything perfectly.

Their drummer is an absolute machine. The fills and general beats he was playing were ridiculous. He never missed a beat, even when he was losing sticks left, right and centre because he was flailing so madly. He was just a smooth motherfucker. Giant smile on his face the whole time, just casually keeping the beat up with one hand while he reaches over to his stick bag and grabs a new one.

The supporting members were all fantastic. The bassist kept up some of the funkiest lines for ridiculous lengths of time. There was definite use of loopage and whatnot, but regardless. They had two dudes on stage left who were looking after auxiliary percussion/saxophone/secondary keyboard duties, and I think they probably had the hardest job, honestly, since their parts are very erratic and depend a whole lot on coming in when the rest of the band decided to move on from the ten minute long canoodling session, but yeah.

They played a nearly 35-minute long version of Cygnus... Vismund Cygnus that simply blew my mind. Cedric had his sexy man-flail on and Omar was stylishly rocking out the whole time. Such a tight band though, musically. Every one of those members is excellent at what they do.

I am so glad that I went to that show, I can't even begin to explain it really.