5/13/08

Sound Academy: May 12, The Mars Volta Experience

Well it's the morning after - I feel used. Some of my body parts aren't working right, my brain muscles are throbbing - but all I want to do is get more fucked up!!

This was my first time seeing a show at the Docks. The Docks is a general entertainment complex, I went once when I turned 16 for an all-ages dance club, it hasn't changed a bit. The inside is very long and fairly wide. The floor is divided 40/60 [bar/concert floor]. I must say, these assholes really understand business. For the first time in ages, I was able to walk up to the bar, and order 5 beers without having to wait in line, watch someone fumble to pour beer, or restrict me to 1 per customer. Thank you Docks!!

The crowd arrived early as usual - with quite an interesting cross section of humans. The most prevalent being the young kids, 16-19, with a surprising number of hunnies. That's right, lots of babes at the Mars Volta show - I was pleased. Most of the dudes in the crowd looked a bit older, maybe 20-25 age group. I also saw some seniors in the line-up, and made a point to show them respect.

I went to the show with 8 of my hombres, only 1 of which had experienced TMV live.
The doors opened at 7pm. I got into the line-up with my posse when the line died down around 745. We got inside immediately with minimal pat down - we had spliffs!!


The show started around 815, which was just enough time for me to get in, buy a shirt ($20) and get a beer ($5.75/can). I'm a tall fuck, so I had a killer spot at the front right, only about 10 heads back from the gate. I could clearly see the Pridgeon, Ikey, Hinojos, Omar and Cedric. The other side of the stage hosted Juan, Marcel and Adrian.

To be honest I have no idea what order they played in, and I'm not going to go search for it online - but here's a list of the songs they did play.

Cygnus (extremely long mix + jam)
Wax Simulacra
Goliath (extremely long mix + jam)
Oroborous
Tetragrammaton (extremely long mix + jam)
Aberinkula
Agadez
Viscera Eyes
Cicatriz


Okay, so my list probably sucks - but when you're there, there’s no way to remember what they played, and the order, especially since I'm a space case to begin with. The best part of this show:

Almost 3 hours long.

That's right, this thing actually went on forever, I thought it was coming to a dramatic ending about 5 times, it was like watching Minority Report without any temptation to smash your Tom Cruise bearing television. This show was ridiculous! I've seen them a lot, and the only time they played longer was back in Montreal 2006.

As usual the band jammed very heavily through a lot of their stronger songs. Both Tetragrammeton and Goliath were SO long, easily 40 minutes each. There's nothing I love more than watching Omar orchestrate the jam through different series of hand gestures, jumps, swings, and most importantly, smiles!!

This was one of the first times the band looked very happy on stage. Either they got hooked up with some awesome T.O. groupies, or they found some good weed... neither would surprise me.

Whatever it was, the band was on point and loving every minute of it! The crowd did too, a lot of rowdy kids turned most of the floor into a small mosh pit - nothing insane though, I saw those two seniors here, and they were head banging much harder than anyone else around, kudos gentlemen!!

Judging by peoples expressions after the show, everyone's face was melted. TMV performed yet again and I’ll be sure to get a ticket to the next show in Toronto. You should too... seriously.

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