Alkaline Trio
Pretty Girls Make Graves
@ Irving Plaza
5/25/03
Through the good graces of Mr. Jack Marshall of Irving Plaza, I breezed in on the Sunday night before Memorial Day via the back entrance straight to the VIP and caught the better part of the Pretty Girls Make Graves set. I don’t think anyone in the band thought that the band would blow up as big as it has, but it’s a hell of a great band. It’s refreshing to hear a female vocal that doesn’t sound generic and with the crew of heavy hitters they’ve got in the fold, they should blow up real big. I believe that the next record will be out on Matador, be interesting to see if the Graves crew can keep up the momentum.

The Alkaline Trio are obviously poised on the brink of crossover success. This show was way sold out, and while it was a stronger triple bill than your average punk show, the Trio were definitely were the draw. After the requisite spooky intro, the boys took the stage to squeals of delight from an ecstatic crowd. Most of the new Good Mourning record was represented, and well it should be. It’s their strongest record to date and will be the one that should put them in a great position to sign a fat deal for the next one. It’s a shame that this will probably be the last time you’ll see the Alkaline Trio in a venue this small. It should be Roseland, at best, next time around. Hope they survive the ride.

The Mars Volta
@ North Six
5/22/03
Let me start off things by giving a hearty fuck you to the good folk of North Six and their ridiculously arbitrary start times. All too regularly, I show up at 11 on a three-band bill to find the second band starting their set. And this on a weeknight to boot. Of course this time, I show up at 10:40 to find the Mars Volta rocking the hell out of the room with an intensity that said the set was pretty much over. As predicted, two minutes later they thanked the crowd and disappeared. Had the last two minutes of the set not been the best show I’ve seen in months, I would have been more pissed.

As I tried to figure out my game plan, I noticed two things: one was a right handed guitar in the guitar rack, and the second was what appeared to be a homeless person creeping along the back of the stage. The homeless person crouched next to the guitar roadie and it became obvious that it was John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Man, did the smack do a number on that guy. Kids, don’t do the hard stuff, that shit is fucked up. Soon after, the Mars Volta boys took the stage and proceeded to burn the place down with some Latin-tinged prog rock. They are more than a band, they are a force of nature. Cedric Bixler has the lungs of a young Robert Plant and he knows how to use them. A lot of times it seemed like he didn’t even need a PA. Omar Rodriguez is pretty gifted his own self. Add a bunch of players that obviously came up on the jazzier end of things and you’ve got a band that is going to raise the bar a little higher. This was the only small room they booked on the tour and they lost a member to a drug overdose two days after this show, but hopefully we’ll see the Mars Volta back in town again sometime soon.