Picture Show: Mars Volta @ Terminal 5
The Mars Volta brought its rolling ball of wild energy, wicked improvisation and hyphenated names to New York’s newest big venue last night, and our main man Danfun headed to the west side for the band’s 150-minute nonstop spectacular.

Dan reports: “The show was fucking great. It had everything I look for in a show. It was loud, high energy and fucking heavy. The band played for close to 2.5 hours without stopping. These guys just blow me a way every time I see them. The setlist featured both old and new songs, but the theme of the night seemed to be that the band was sick of people saying ‘Why don’t you make your first two records over and over again?’ I can’t wait until they tour again great time.”
So read on after the jump for some more amazing photos from Danfun…

(click to enlarge)



So anyone hit this show? Got a report for us? Good times? Great oldies?

















January 16th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
i’m a long time fan and over the years i’ve realized during a tour the set seems to stay the same while the improv sections that occur a number of times in various places during a set obviously change every show. sometimes the improv is mediocre and other times it makes the show.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I have a feeling that their next tour may see them switch up the setlist a little more. It seems to me that they are still getting the feeling for playing some of these new songs live.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
True that. What’s interesting though is they seem to draw a pretty equal crowd split between pabst loving hipsters and patchouli loving heads. They’re by no means a jamband, but they jam out pretty hard on top of their existing arragements. Provided, I’d tend to think they’d switch it up a bit more, if only to make the jams a little fresher
January 15th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
hey andrew, im more surprised by the fact that they actually have songs.. Im not real familiar with these guys, but the fewtimes ive listened through their last album, I couldnt make heads or tails of it. It definiely rocks though!
keep in mind that maybe Mars Volta may not be coming from the “different set every night” ethos… and probably arent expecting people to hit multiple shows in a row on their tours?
some great photos!
January 15th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
That’s pretty funny shit, Andrew…you should buy the URL right now.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:59 am
P.S. after the show at Lupo’s I stuck around to try and get my hands on a copy of a set list, and I overheard a convo between a fan and a few securety guards. Apparently Cedrix Bixler stole the kids cell phone from the stage while he was taking a few photo’s and was trying to get it back.
Is it possible that “The Mars Volta Stole my cell phone” is the “The Arcade Fire stole my baseket ball” of 2008?
January 15th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Nice pics of the show!
I also saw the Lupo’s show on Saturday. I had a blast. I couldn’t believe they played that long of a set with no real stopping.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Can I get a copy of the original file for the third pic from the bottom please? Or can you just enable the enlarge feature on that? Thanks
January 15th, 2008 at 10:04 am
I caught their set at Lupo’s in Providence on Saturday. Killer fucking set. However, having attained a set list, it appears they played the exact same set, tune for tune, in Providence that they did in New York