Rock and Rolled Heel & Arena Arch

My feet hurt from a combination of driving and standing in front of great music.

Sunday:

The Mars Volta-

I Imagine the drama unfolded as thus: Omar A Rodriguez-Lopez pulls up his just-under-the-waist, red courderoy flairs (you know, the ones that have a matched sleeveless vest) and runs a callused hand through 12 inches of woolen head shrubbery in a nervous stroke that momentarily looses the hand from sight up to the middle of the fore-arm. He's nervous because the sound man from the headliner is never all that receptive about fielding vocational critiques from the opening band.

The problem is that he couldn't hear himself on stage the night before. . . or the night before that, either. You'd think a double stack of orange Jimi Hendrix Vintage Cabinets would be hard to loose in the mix. You'd think that triple-miking the rig would insure that loosing said tone in the mix would be thrice-harder.

But, as one lanky half of the face of TMV, O.A.R-L steps up to Sound Guy a states his piece:

"If the kids can't hear my guitar, how will they know that I'm not one of those Two-Minute-Guitar-Solo-Heros. The solo is the soul of the tune, the nervous system and the vessels. The pituitary gland, lymph node and spleen of the groove lies in those hammer-ons and pull-offs. It's what they came to see. . . I mean, besides System of a Down. You'd be doing the crowd a great service if you turned me up, just a bit at first, then lot's. If they wanted to hear the bass player we'd put him in the band photos."

Sound Guy displays, professionally, the face they taught him at tech school. The one that appears concerned and sympathetic to the needs and desires of the talent. He assures Omar A Rodriguez-Lopez that the people will hear him play tonight. They will all hear him, indeed. His guitar will be remembered as the loudest guitar in the land and the soul of his songs will pierce the porous fiber of the crowd's soul's fix for solos that not only start the song but finish it too.

System of a Down:

This little Armenian plays bass,
this little Armenian plays drums.
This little Amrenian plays guitar,
This little Armenian screams, "WEE WEE WEE FUCK YOU PIG" all the way home.

Not a dry thigh in my pants at this show.

Rasputina:

I felt like a completely fanatic lunatic when I picked up the new Radical Recital cd and said, "Recorded at Mr. Smalls Funhouse in Pittsburgh? That was a really good show". I've officially seen them more than Tool. More than anybody. I see them on stage and they look familiar, like people I know from somewhere. I think the drummer recognizes me.

Last night, before the show, I spotted him wearing a t-shirt that said, "I have the biggest dick in the band". Heard two new songs and a medley of tunes from the upcoming rock opera, all of which he sings on, along with the girls, to add a new dimension to their songs.

You just can't beat a ten foot spread between yourself and the Cello Society.