09.17.2005 System of a Down/The Mars Volta/Hella

got to the venue as hella was starting up. i could actually hear them starting from the patdown line. pat down was easy peasy. the females were checking the males and the males were checking the females. how odd.

hella, couldn't really get into them. sorta reminded me of that band who opened for trail last time i saw them. i saw cedric bixler going crazy for hella by the soundboard. no one noticed him. his frow-ish hair and smallest-pair-of-pants-i've-ever-seen-on-a-guy gave him away.

TMV was awesome. their visual effects were soooo trippy. most of the design was also pretty bizzare as well. but it worked. they played about 55 min. the setup that the PNE has consists of a bass stack and PAs. obviously, doing a stack tape is out of the question. i thought about lining up w/ the PA and moving back (which is what i did for system), but i was warned before that tmv uses a stereo setup. thus, i stood in the "sweet spot" (which as we all know does not exist ;) ) the stereo effects were mostly omars guitars. was it worth it? well the jury is still out on that one. vocals and guitar and flute came out great, but the rest of the percussion comes out kinda muddy. i was expecting long jams and that's what we got. i was into it the whole time. mostly new songs. i think they played roulette dares, but i'd have to check again.

System. well if this was any time between 1999-2003, i would have been super stoked to see them. now not so much. aside from a few songs, i found their new album to be a little 'meh'. they played a mix of songs spanning their 3 albums. serj, half the time, and especially during the beginning, looked like he was just going through the motions. compared to cedric, he was very subdued. to his defence though, he was wasn't very happy w/ the monitors at the beginning either, neither was shavo. lotsa meatheads in the pit. but that's expected.

rating: $49.50/$49.50 (tmv made it well worth it with their set length)