By Martin Cizmar
So I don’t normally write about shows I don’t see, but I’ve been hearing enough complaints about tonight’s Mars Volta show that I had to throw up a post, if only to give disappointed Phoenicians a place to leave comments bitching about Cedric Bixler Zavala.
Turns out the band played four or five songs over the course of about an hour then took off, reports our Assistant art director Jasmine Hobeheidar, who attended the show with her boyfriend. “Oh my God, everyone was so pissed off,” she says. “Everyone was looking at each other like ‘what?’”
What the band did play was great, Hobeheidar says, but once it became clear the house lights weren’t on for an intermission, anger and confusion set in.
We should mention that tickets for this show at Dodge Theatre went for $34 plus tax and fees. Oh, and there was no opener.
I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’ve been a fervent Mars Volta hater since the beginning, mostly because I love At The Drive-In. When you’re in a band that makes “Relationship of Command” – one of the 10 best records of the decade, and the 50 best of all-time – you don’t quit it to start some stupid prog rock band that plays shitty jazz fusion.
Anyway, I hope some more shows like this may make you Cedric apologists finally start to see things my way.
Oh, and sorry we don't have any better pictures. Photographer Luke Holwerda was tossed after only about a minute, despite being told before the show he'd have ten minutes. Security told him the band didn't feel like having their picture taken. Good times.
