#thomas pridgen

turns out, there’s more photos with ced and pridgen in this very room!

Christian Scott -  Like this (Rewind That, 2006)

Personnel:

09/16/2009; Palladium Ballroom, Dallas, TX

It’s crazy how memories work. I can’t remember much from this far back in the past, but I remember this day so well. The Mars Volta was, and still is by extension of all the projects Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala have worked on, my favorite band. I had seen them twice before and both times ranked, and rank, around the upper echelons of shows I’ve ever been to.

In 2006, Jon Theodore had quit the Volta as their drummer. Thomas Pridgen joined full time the next year and injected fresh energy into the already chaotic band. That lasted through 2008. By the time they rolled into town in 2009, they were getting tired and wearing down again. They’d soon switch up their style and lineup again to refresh things, but for the time being the band was slowing and growing stale. Pridgen wasn’t long for the band due to personal issues, and you could see it just in Cedric’s lack of movement how unhappy he was at the time.

So 2009 was not the greatest year of the Volta, or of any Omar/Cedric project. I still managed to catch them twice (and should have seen them three times, more on that tomorrow), but it was obvious it wasn’t the same as it had been the previous year. That being said, they were all of course just as amazing musicians as they had ever been. The musical performances were fantastic, it was just obvious they weren’t as lively or into it as they had been before.

I drove up to Dallas early in the morning and actually camped outside the Palladium Ballroom for hours. I was big into being front row for the Volta back then, so I made damn sure I was going to get there. It took forever, and when they actually let us in it was a stampede. I had to fight my way through the door, because so many people were trying to squeeze through, and I barely managed to get a spot. The people next to me were tripping on acid. Typical Volta crowd.

I snagged that setlist just after the band walked off stage. I also got one of Pridgen’s drumsticks and one of Juan Alderete’s bass picks. I think I still have those somewhere in my house. I dug out this setlist recently and started reflecting. Despite my quibbles with their energy levels, this was a peak Volta setlist. It really culls some of the best material from everything they had recorded up to that point. “Luciforms” was a big highlight of this tour too. Every rendition of it was fantastic, with Ikey Owens’ organ playing on it being magical and the jams being among my favorites in Volta history.

Christian Scott  - Rejection (Rewind That, 2006)

Christian Scott – trumpet

Walter Smith III – tenor saxophone

Matthew Stevens – guitar

Zaccai Curtis – Fender rhodes

Luques Curtis – acoustic bass

Thomas Pridgen – drums