the acoustic diaries

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Why don't presidents fight the wars? Why do they always send the poor?

System Of A Down and The Mars Volta rocked the Coliseum last night.

We got there just as the first band Hella, was finishing their set. They ended with a nice drum solo.

The Mars Volta came on around 7:50pm and played a 4 song set that lasted 55mins. The live band consists of eight members. My friend told me that during the recording of their album Frances The Mute, guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez used over 200 effect pedals. Pretty insane. Throughout the set, singer Cedric Bixler Zavala was very entertaining to watch. His stage presence was quite intense and included some Michael Jackson - like dance moves, but without any crotch grabbing.

With the Coliseum not having the best sound system in the world, it was difficult at times to hear the vocals clearly, but the musicality of the set was an interesting experience. Omar was soloing like crazy during the performance and the audience seemed very appreciative.

System Of A Down played from 9:25pm - 11pm. Their set was pounding from start to finish and had a very nice flow. With their songs being around 3-4mins, they played most of their catalogue.

Their 1hr 35min set didn't contain an encore, but it didn't need one. The performance was straight rocking and the crowd's energy showed it. There were some crazy slam circles that broke out in the pit. Included was a big circle, and a mini circle a bit farther back from the stage. The mini circle was like an amateur pit, where if you knock over 3 guys, you can graduate to the bigger circle.

During the show, I bumped into Neil Morrison from CFOX, who was seated near us. Another guy close to us was playing air guitar throughout the whole performance. He seemed really into it too, carefully watching his finger placement. I guess he wanted to make sure he was playing on the right fret.

Anyways, I had a nice ringing in my ears after the show. I asked my buddy how his ear plugs worked out. He said he put them in about 3/4 into the set. By that time, he already couldn't hear. That's just plain funny.

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