Mars Volta: Live at the Electric Factory

The biggest risk with this show was that I had so totally overhyped it in my head that even a phenomenal performance would be disappointing. There was no opener, so there was no warm-up, just the building tension waiting for the Volta to go on.

The curtain dropped, the band strolled out and then exploded into something I could not have prepared myself for. Two and a half hours later, I wasn't even sure what happened, but I think it was possibly the best show I've ever seen.

I don't even know if I should try to make sense of it, so I'm just gonna throw out a bunch of random comments:

• The band semed to be simultantaneously in complete control and ready to explode.


• They did a better job of managing the energy of the music than any band I've ever seen.


• Cedric performed like James Brown without any restraint.


• They had a lightshow as trippy as their music, but the lights never focused on any single person.


• Omar must feel something in the tips of his fingers that only he and maybe Carlos Santana can understand.


• They played for two and a half hours without any break. They didn't even stop to talk between songs.


• Half the time, I wasn't even sure what they were playing, but it didn't matter.
  


• They didn't try to connect with the crowd as individuals with between song banter, because the music alone was the connection.


• There was no encore and no one complained.


• Cedric also reminded me a bit of a cross between James Brown and Jim Morrison.


• The band never seemed to be going through the motions. They never seemed to be doing what they should do, but only what they must do. The music dictated everything. There was no posturing.
  


• I've never been to another show that was so completely about the music.

I walked away thinking that this is what it's like to see a really great performance. Like seeing the Doors do "The End" at the Whiskey for the first time or being present when Pink Floyd filmed Live at Pompeii or watching Hendrix light his guitar on fire at Monterey. Something on that level. Or at least as much on that level as I can imagine experiencing. It was a new standard of live music in my experience and I'll measure all shows against it. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before, qualitatively different from every other show.