Sunday, October 5, 2008

LA Weekly Detour Festival Review

I don't know if having my favorite band headline the Detour Festival was a good or bad thing. On paper, it looked like a day full of new bands to check out culminating with the icing on the cake, The Mars Volta. What happened though, was that I was so anxious to see Mars Volta I wasn't really feeling any of the opening bands!

Waiting for the Volta


So, in brief, Datarock were still wearing the same red track suits. If their new song was any indication of the rest of their forthcoming album, I must say "I'm glad to have seen them when...".

Datarock


Bitter:Sweet were pleasingly KCRWish-thanks for the tickets BTW ;)

Bitter:Sweet


Hercules and the Love Affair provided disco beats that bled from one song to the next. They were a great way to warm up our dancing shoes.

Though I've been intending to check out Gogol Bordello for quite some time, when it came down to actually watching them, I just wasn't feeling the gypsy punk amongst the aforementioned disco beats and the anticipation of the Volta.

I'm sorry Teresa, I know they're your new favorite but Cut Copy were passable-at least in the festival setting. They essentially played backup to their CD. What happened to LIVE MUSIC??

Mars Volta. What can I say? I'm partial. They played a beatiful set beginning with a 30 minute Drunkship. The band has been known for providing sub-par performances at festivals but that was not the case here at all. With family and friends-including John Frusciante-watching from the side stage, TMV played as if they're year of constant touring was all practice for this final US performance.

A new song was introduced before Wax Simulacra which wasa along the lines of the mellow Asilos Magdalena. The band were in great spirits with smiles all around. Omar was the maestro of the evening-he apperaed as if he should have had a conductors wand instead of a guitar at times by the way he controlled the direction of the improvisations.

And for those who say they can't ever hear Ikey's keys or Ardrian's horns, they were both given extended guitar-less solos during the closing 30 minutes Goliath jam. Long live the Volta! It wasn't all jams though, "old" favorites Viscera Eyes, Meccaamputechture, and The Widow were played along with Ouroboros and Ilyena

Ouroborus


New Song! and Wax Simulacra

3 comments:

Teresa said...

oh Joe, you simply don't understand how the synthesizers and live instruments jive together to make electronic music! Who cares if they have some programmed beats, there were still live guitars and drums up in that piece!

Plus, you gotta give 'em a pass for the technical difficulties...

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