The Mars Volta has once again blown minds onto the streets of America.
The band’s un-gaudy performance Saturday night at the Detour Music Festival in downtown Los Angeles will once again send shock waves through the music community. So, why isn’t Mars Volta the biggest band in the world?
The dream machine twirls, along with the microphone; the highs and lows register a soft mid never heard before; the drum hits are so fast they are hard to discern amongst one another; the bass throbs ““ the keenly melodic dissonance of The Mars Volta capped the day-long festival with an attitude and style all their own, giving the festival a message of “We are here to stay.”
But considering the band’s devoted fan base and impressive catalogue, we all knew that anyway.
But the sense of permanence extended far beyond the headliners.
The entire day had a feeling of substantiality, the crowd synchronously experiencing an austere realization that this festival is real, vibrant and, despite its relatively small scope and big-city location, soon to be a contender with some of the other destination festivals across the country.
With Los Angeles City Hall as its backdrop, the festival leapt through various genres and the hours, from DJ video mixes to country jangle, until the headlining act.
The Mars Volta appeared to usher in the reality of the festival to cement its footprints at the base of the city center.
Peanut Butter Wolf engaged the crowd with clips of music videos and songs they never knew existed, airing out any stuffiness for laughter and booty-shaking.
Meanwhile, other acts provided constant entertainment on the festival’s four stages, doing their thing as the crowd crowded on.
But The Mars Volta, again, highlighted the show.
It’s hard not to appreciate some of the more poignant lyrics: “In the end they just gagged you to make you come out,” and “That night I remember what you slipped in my glass.”
They seem to be something of a musical paradigm, an anomaly, sort of like composer Philip Glass’ religious beliefs (Buddhist-Jewish-Taoist-Toltec Hindu).
Their music shifts, quite literally, all over the place.
And it just works.
And here, at the Detour festival, the band’s strategically schizophrenic euphony was perfectly appropriate.
They are the summation of all the other bands in one outstanding outfit unlike any other on this planet.
““ Scott Lerner
E-mail Lerner at slerner@media.ucla.edu.