My best concert: The Mars Volta (2023)

 

On May 30 of this year, the Texan-Puerto Rican band The Mars Volta performed in Chile, at the Movistar Arena, for the first time alone. In 2010 he had presented himself with another musical project with Latin roots: Rage Against the Machine.

The Mars volta are a band composed of Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedrix Bixler-Zavala, eclectic and hermetic by nature, difficult to classify into a single genre, aesthetic trend or particular style. Their songs and albums deal with cryptic, paranormal and psychedelic themes. They have become famous as a "cursed band" for having composed songs with a Ouija board brought from Jerusalem, translating poems from the Aramaic that the artifact contained and including them in their songs. This invoked spirit, called Goliath, is blamed for the death of his prodigious drummer a few years later, the suspension of multiple concerts due to strange electrical failures, the fall of the lighting scaffolding at a show, among other events that are difficult to explain.

As you can imagine, the atmosphere of the event was gloomy and psychedelic. The lights were at the back of the band, always giving the illusion of the band members being shadows. These lights were generated by large mirrors, making everything very spooky. But outside of the performance, the audience was eager and happy, great classics from the "Voltian" discography were performed, as well as during the long improvisations (which are the concert itself) various nods to Chilean songs, such as El Derecho de Vivir en Paz or El Árado by Victor Jara, as well as rock classics like Vitamin C by the German band Can, were included.

Although his accompanying band changes constantly and has never lasted for more than one album or one tour (It has had among its ranks great musicians such as John Frusciante or the virtuoso Jon Theodore) the inclusion of drummer Linda-Philomène Tsoungui and keyboardist Leo Genovese They are decisive in an aesthetic that, at least live, already seems comfortable in jazz fusion. Something that, in its atonal and strident mix with hardcore punk, progressive rock and Latin American music, makes their live performances an incredible experience, but which, unfortunately, will always leave you wanting more.