Photograph by Chris Tuite for RollingStone.com
The Mars Volta wrapped day two at Outside Lands’ Twin Peaks stage with a thundering and delirious 90-minute set that drew Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and Robert Trujillo and their U.K. tourmates Mastodon to the side of the stage to gawk.
The band, led by Omar Rodríguez-López and vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala, maxed out allowable sound levels with their theatrical, histrionic brand of meandering, mystical loud-soft prog-metal. Set against a patterned backdrop of skulls and fishbones surrounding an ominous, Indo-Mayan visage that changed moods with the stage lighting, Bixler-Zavala wailed “If you could see where I’ve been! during “Ilyena.” Fans got a lovely taste of “The Widow,” but the real treat came when the El Paso, Texas band dedicated “Luciforms” off of new Octahedron to metal heavyweights Mastodon.
Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, Mastodon and more: check out Outside Lands in photos.
Mastodon themselves turned in the heaviest set of the three-day Outside Lands proceedings Saturday at 3:55 p.m. Even though twin mosh pits erupted during the set, “It was crap,” joked lead singer Troy Sanders afterward. “We were playing in the day. You can’t rock in the day.”
Sanders said Mastodon’s September break after months of touring would be filled with kicking back and catching up on movies like Halloween 2 and relaxing after the release of their latest LP Crack The Skye. Mastodon hit the road again with High on Fire and Cartoon Network’s virtual band DethKlok in October, and Sanders said many shows are sold out and new dates are being added.
The cartoon that birthed DethKlok, Metalocalypse, pokes fun at narcissistic musicians and the tropes of metal, but Sanders says he’s totally cool with it. &...
Article Source: Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily