Europa - giugno/luglio 2009, giugno/luglio

Gig was fucking awesome. Easily the best show of the festival, in my opinion.

Setlist:

Goliath
Cotopaxi
Roulette Dares
Viscera Eyes
Halo of Nembutals
Drunkship of Lanterns
Luciforms
Ilyena
The Widow
Wax Simulacra

They played for 80 minutes. After A Fist full of Dollars intro they came out and Cedric asked "Are you guys hungry?" making the crowd go nuts, then he turned to the left and asked "what about you guys over here, are you guys hungry?" and then right, and then adressed the back. Then Goliath was on.

Cedric said something along the lines of "this is a new song, you might not like it" or something about Cotopaxi.

At one point he said "Does anyone know the band "(inaudible... something with m)"? Yeah? Well last week Omar tried to leave The Mars Volta to join "(insert correct band name here)". It almost happened, but then Omar said "nah man I'm too good to play with you guys" " - Omar laughing

Then later in the show Cedric said "ARE YOU STILL HUNGY?" - crowd cheering - addressing the different parts of the audience, making them scream.

During one song he signalled the crowd should keep on singing the vocals while he improvised on top. Cedric looked like he was having fun. He was ON FIRE at least.

Only drawbacks were: Only 80 minutes of music, No cygnus, Marcel and Ikey were hard to hear, if not completely inaudible at times.

But overall great show. Cedric danced his ass off and he's singing better than ever.

The setlist was something like this:

Goliath
Cotopaxi
Roulette
Halo
Viscera
Drunkship
Teflon
Wax

Not sure about the order at all. Well, really nothing special about this gig. Omar's singing was really loud in Nembutals and it gave me chills to hear Cedric and Omar singing together. There was some really hard rain through the first half of the set and Cedric said sth. like "He (Omar) is so good, he makes his pedals wet. Cedric was indeed pissed about the audience. "Is there anybody here to watch us play? You look very tired right here in the front, but don't worry better bands will follow" Oh and the next bands were Black Eyed Peas, Kaiser Chiefs and Kings of Leon and of course Metallica..so yeah. And before Wax Cedric said sth. like "thanks a lot! you've been..." silence which i didn't quit understand. Maybe he meant that the crowd was really boring and silent, i don't know.

The set list was the same as in Duesseldorf (June 29):

01 Goliath - relaxed version, similar to Duesseldorf
02 Cotopaxi - powerful, similar to Duesseldorf
03 Roulette Dares - this was the first song the audience showed a little elation
04 Viscera Eyes - this time I could hear Marcel's keys at the beginning happy.gif; Juan rocked the stage; again a nice solo by Omar; Cedric was so great on this one
05 Halo Of Nembutals - afterwards Cedric said sorry for cancelling last year's show: "sometimes it's better to cancel a show than to have a shitty show"; the crowd accepted by cheering
06 Cygnus....Vismund Cygnus - no Sarcophagi tunes at the beginning sad.gif; again a brilliant Omar solo, when it chilled, Cedric did some improvisation, which evolved into Sarcophagi lyrics and Omar played a very distorted version of the according tune to it, the 'Strychnine' lyrics were also part of this jam; once again a long break before "who do you trust" (the audience started clapping); after that I thought they kind of lost track of what to play, the Con Safo jam [I hope I'm correct with track denomination rolleyes.gif, anyways I refer to the last part of the song] was shorter and did not bring back the energy it usually does unsure.gif
07 Desperate Graves - again my favorite Octahedron song live
08 Ilyena - another highlight; Cedric dedicated the song to Helen Mirren
09 Teflon - the sound guy missed to open up Omar's mic for the backing vocals (again dry.gif), but noticed it, so we could hear them at least for the second time
10 Drunkship - unusual this time, I think Omar tried to alter some of the riffs; they messed up at the end (I think it was Thomas' fault, but that's just a half-hearted opinion), Cedric did not know when to start singing again, so he missed a few words for 2 times; they're only human, aren't they wink.gif
11 Luciforms - at the beginning of the song, Cedric said something like "are you still in here?" and "I thought we may have lost you". "We'll play some more new stuff" almost sounded like a warning ninja.gif; this is my second favourite Octahedron live song, I felt like singing loudly "bury me in gold!", but skipped it, since many people around me hardly moved their heads to the music; Cedric did The Smiths' cover again at the end, but this time without repeating the first half of the bridge lyrics (which I liked better when he did in Duesseldorf)
12 The Widow - Juan changed his bass before the song, but obviously there were technical problems, cuz the new one was not hearable; they fumbled around for about 2 minutes, then we could finally hear him; a lot of people cheered when they recognized the song, but there was also whistling (which I disapprove...)
13 Wax Simulacra - IMO a good song to end the show; very energetic, Thomas just pulled it off again and Juan rocked out on this one, too

Again I'd argue the converse, I did not like the venue very much. Here is what I judge to be the critical points:

The shape of the venue is weird (have a look at the gallery of Den Atelier), if you stood on the left side, you only saw the right side of the stage, same for the balcony.

To set the bar on the right side is terrible, cuz if people want to go there for a drink, they'll cross the masses (I think bars at the back of a venue are more common).

I stood near the soundboard (which is quite near the stage at that venue), and there was a migration of people all the time; right where I was standing, in front of me and behind me. I'd say that only the first 10 rows of people were packed that densely that they did not experience this kind of annoyance. And I found it very distracting to have people push past me all the time!

There was little respond from the audience (compared to last week's show in Duesseldorf or Cologne 2008), the clapping and cheering was reserved. Basically, Cedric also said something like "are you still in here?" And a lot of people left in-between; I was moving forwards to fill up the empty space and at the end of the show I was about 4 m (13 ft) closer to the stage unsure.gif

When TMV left the stage after approx. 2 hours, some people even started a chorus of whistles, because the show was over without an encore wacko.gif

The 'show' itself, considered what the band delivered, was enjoyable, but the 'rest' of it weakened the experience for me.

much better than last year cologne. small venue (even 2003 i saw them in a bigger venue, if i remember right), great sound good crowd.

cedric apologized for canceling last year. setlist like duesseldorf, i think.

many highlights, but for me: cygnus.

perhaps more tomorrow

It was truely amazing, and den atelier was the best venue I've ever been to see a concert : if you were in frontrow, you had your arms on the stages (taking care that Cedric don't step on them) ; if you were in backrow, you were still very close !

Everybody on stage was on fire, except Marcel maybe...

Coverage of T in the Park from Kinross, Scotland. Maximo Park and James Morrison play the Main Stage, while The Mars Volta and Idlewild are on the Radio 1/NME Stage.

Goliath
Cotopaxi
Roulette Dares
Viscera Eyes
Halo
Cygnus
Desperate Graves
Ilyena
Teflon
Drunkship
Luciforms
Widow
Wax

The show was very energetic (as usual maybe), Cedric seemed to bee in a good mood, talking more than I had ever see him do, apart from the 'Cleveland' part he was explaining the meaning of a song at some point (sorry, can't rememeber which one and can't even remember what he was saying exactly), later has was thanking the audience for 'letting us do what we want to do' relating to the 'change' in style on the new album.

Cygnus was a higlghht for me, I like the last sequence very much, I really want to compare it to last year's version. The Widow was wonderful, love hearing that! And Wax is a great song to finish. Show lasted little less than 2 hrs, no encore as usual this tour. Crowd was very enthousiastic all through the gig.

I sure hope a recording will surface some time soon...

Cedric said something like:

'This song is about when you have a fire and you fight that fire with another fire you ignite the forest' and then they started Teflon, which was awesome.

Awesome show as far as i'm concerned, although soundwise i wasnt too impressed: i could hardly hear the keys, omar was too soft for me.

in effetti ho solo la prima parte dello show, una mezz'oretta dal web.
posto in download?

Mars Volta forced to cut short T In The Park gig

The Mars Volta were forced to cut short their T In The Park show today (July 10), when security deemed their set too long for the allotted time.

Playing the NME / Radio 1 Stage at the Scottish festival, the flamboyant prog band still managed to showcase their back-catalogue with a five-song set.

With their stage featuring a Mexican flag and massive modern-gothic background mural, the band - led by afro'd frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala - started their show by playing live favourite 'Goliath'.

"God damn y'all, you're all so far away!" Bixler-Zavala told the audience before playing the song. The epic track saw the frontman jump around the stage in wild fashion, flailing and whipping his microphone lead as he did so.

After playing tight but lengthy versions of 'Roulette Dares' and 'Vicera Eyes', the band informed the crowd their set had been cut short.

"The powers that be say we can only play one more song," Bixler-Zavala told the outdoor crowd, causing them to boo – although the band didn’t show any reaction.

Instead, they launched into their final song, a punky version of 'Wax Simulacra'. "I'm sure you've loved having us but we have to go," he said before exiting the stage.

The Mars Volta played:

'Goliath'
'Cotopaxi'
'Roulette Dares'
'Vicera Eyes'
'Wax Simulacra'

Setlist:

Goliath
Cotopaxi
Roulette Dares
Viscera Eyes
Halo of Nembutals
Drunkship of Lanterns
Wax Simulacra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64MGXTtGh0Q

"Here's an old one. HOW OLD IS IT? I'll tell you how old it is--fuckin' old, alright? Older than Juan." HA HA HA HA HA

Goliath
Cotopaxi
Roulette
Viscera
Halo
Cygnus
Desperate Graves
Iiyena
Teflon
Drunkship
Luciforms
Widow
Wax

Cedric said some great things (paraphrasing):

When they came on:

'Thank you for coming out, lets have a good time together'

Before Halo (Not sure about the festival bit being before Halo but I think it was):

'Thanks to everyone who followed us around the European Festivals, we had a real hard time, its no fun doing that shit. But now we're here and this is what its all about. We're gonna play another new song for you now its called Halo of Nembutals'

Then afterwards -

'It wasn't really that bad, we got to see some Nick Cave...better than Queens of Leon anyway' biggrin.gif

Before Ilyena:

'There's this woman who I first saw in a film called Excalibur and then The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover, she's called Helen Mirren and she's fucking fantastic...she's one of your own and this is for her its called Ilyena'

He said about the jellyfish being the real Deloused cover before Drunkship, also said it just goes to show how you don't always have control.

Before The Widow he said that him and Omar used to live in this house and he would always play this weird music that made him feel all these nasty and good feelings that he can't explain. But when they were in a hotel in Australia he asked Omar to play them again because he had thought of a song and this is what came out of it.

And before Desperate Graves he said, 'I decided to take a walk and came across some Desperate Graves'.

before Luciforms, 'We must not be late for our appointment with the Wickerman'