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Contributed Reviews Reviews Archive |
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The Anniversary Review by Conor Klamann The show on November 4th at El Torreon featuring Mates of State, Mars Volta, and The Anniversary was one of those shows that I had been anticipating for quite a while. I can say that I was not disappointed, mainly due to the performances of the opening acts. The first act, Mates of State, really was more than I had expected. Mates of State is a two member act featuring Kori Gardner on keyboards and Jason Hammel on drums. Their sound was suprisingly full and the male\female vocals were impressive. They played a nearly continuous set, interrupted only by Gardner complaing about the sound, becoming more sarcastic each time. The band also made minimal eye contact with the crowd, spending most of the set giving each other cute looks and smiling. While their performance was not extremely memorable, this group has a unique sound which has me anticipating a new full length release soon. The next group up was Mars Volta. Mars Volta is a four-piece featuring Omar and Cedric of At the Drive-In. Omar was on guitar, Sedrick sang, and they were joined by drums and keyboards. Mars Volta sounded like the logical progression from At the Drive-In. Imagine "Relationship of Command" with more vocal distortion, more keyboad effects, and generally more noise. Overall, this band blew me away. They played non-stop except for when Omar wished a friend "Happy fuckig birthday." Their songs featured intense drumming coupled with intricate keyboard\guitar combinations and piercing vocals. Unfortuantely, the tiny stage allowed for very little of the stage antics for which Sedrick and Omar have become famous. Last to play was The Anniversary. It was apparent that the band was going to have problems when Josh Berwanger had to have someone else tune his guitar and perfom his sound check. If you were to measure the slits that were each member's eyes, and then add them all together, you would have one normal-looking eye. Aside from the group's general state of intoxication, they put on a pretty good show. They played mainly songs off of their still-unreleased album, "Your Majesty." The new songs are a departure from their earlier "emo" sound and sound heavily influenced by bands like The Beatles, The Pixies, Pink Floyd, and general 80s synth-pop. They opened with an older song, "Perfectly," and then followed it with "Sweet Marie," "Peace, Pain and Regret", and "the new, poppy version of 'To Never Die Young.'" The new songs sounded great, but it was apparent that the band was tired of playing songs that no one knew the words to. They continued to play songs from "Your Majesty" and sprinkled in "Emma Discovery," "All Things Ordinary," and "The D in Detroit." It was funny to watch the kids in the crowd stare while the new stuff was played, and then try to start a mosh pit when they finished with "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter." The lack of Josh Berwanger's stage presence was also detrimental to the show. Normally, Josh is dancing around, heckling the crowd, and occasionally rapping. This time, however, he played mainly with his back to the audience, apparently trying to maintain his balance. The only interesting thing that he did was insert the word "fucking" into random songs where it made minimal sense. I would recomend seeing any of these bands, especially in a better venue. That is assuming The Anniversary can see straight.
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