I arrived at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre (BCEC) just after 7:00pm, doors were already open. For those of you who have not attended BCEC for a concert, is it good to know that you are not permitted to have your drinks in anything other than a cardboard cup (which is supplied for beverage transfer).
The strange thing was there was no support so we sat around and waited until about 8:45pm for The Mars Volta to start. Also it is interesting to note that this gig/concert didn’t sell out. For those of you who don’t know there are currently eight guys in The Mars Volta. From left to right of stage:
Adrian Terrazas-Gonzales - Flute, Tenor Saxophone, Bass Clarinet and additional wind & percussion instruments
Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez - Percussion, synthesizers
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Composer, Guitar, synthesizers, production
Thomas Pridgen - Drums
Juan Alderete - Bass
Cedric Bixler Zavala - Lyrics, Vocals
Isaiah "Ikey" Owens - Keyboards
Paul Hinojos - Guitar, Sound Manipulation
Omar and Cedric write all the music and they were the driving force behind At the Drive-In. This brings me to my next point of just how typically “indie” these guys are and their history. Omar and Cedric worked hard with At the Drive-In, gaining massive popularity and becoming commercially successful. Just when At the Drive-In’s success was starting to reach its peak, Omar and Cedric are all like this band/group is being so restrictive of my music creativity (man). So At the Drive-In broke up and The Mars Volta were born. At the Drive-In defiantly had a certain sound to them, so I can see why Omar and Cedric felt compelled to create a more explorative band such as The Mars Volta. The Mars Volta’s music is much more varied than At the Drive-In and I can only assume this is what Omar and Cedric were going for.
Anyway back to the set. The set list went something like this:
Rapid Fire
Roulette
Cygnuss
Viscera
Idle Tooth
Drunkship
Vermicide
Tetris
Cicatriz
Mecca
Baphomet
The great thing about seeing The Mars Volta live is that, they very rarely just reproduce the sound that is recorded on their CD’s. Which lets face it is why we go and see live music. The Mars Volta do not disappoint with almost each of the eight getting a chance to let their creative side out with some awesome solos. I particularly like the almost duelling that went on for a while between Omar on lead guitar and Adrian on sax. Omar would play a little something on his guitar and Adrian would reply with a similar sound on the sax, Omar upping the anti each time. Thomas Pridgen (on drums) is relatively new to The Mars Volta and I tend to agree with some other reviews out there that Thomas was trying a bit too hard at times to make his mark in the band. But all in all a good performance filled with lots of on stage antics by Cedric, including a lot of throwing his white microphone (with white lead) around and catching it (also Cedric was mainly dressed in black so it provided a great contrast to the white mic). There was also a bit of “rock status” climbing on top of equipment (amps, etc).
From the technical side of things, firstly the BCEC doesn’t have great acoustics. That being said it would be difficult to get he mixing of eight musicians in any space. However this is what they do and I think the mixing could have been better. Isaiah "Ikey" Owens awesome work on the keyboards was just getting washed out a lot of the time. The quality of the mixing varied throughout the set. The lighting and effects were of a high standard during the songs, however the between song lighting while sort of themed (purple down-lights on the stage), became very repetitive and a bit boring.
There was no encore, and the set wrapped at about 10:55pm so it was a good two hour set from The Mars Volta.
Performance 8.5
Technical 7
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