OK, so Mantra got absolutely, 100% fucked tonight [Editor - Friday, the 24th]. They were originally alotted a full hour to play their set, but this smelly little man that strangely resembled a monkey told them they were done. Thanks to some heated discussion (local Pinion arguing for Mantra, with show organizer Tim Donovan and Gary Gagne, the man/monkey, arguing against them), they were allowed to play one more song. Of course, their lead singer gave them flak about it, and rattled off all the songs they couldn't play ("Oh, that means no new silverchair cover, no deftones cover, we can't play our new Tool cover, no hardcore punk song, and we can't play the best song off of our new album that's coming out soon, it's called Glass Prison. Golly gee whiz, I guess we can't play all those covers now. Shucks. Thanks, guys!"), which really worked up the crowd because they obviously wanted to hear them, and pissed off the two trying to get them off stage (or off the gazeebo, which the show was being held in). Now, of course, they launched into their now epic-sized cover of silverchair's Israel's Son. If you've seen Mantra before, you of course knew that they'd throw another song in the middle of this, and now with the shortened set, you expected a few songs. Right on cue in the breakdown, they jumped right into "Freak Of Nature" (much to the chagrin of the pigme ape man), which was really, really funny. And, right on cue, their bassist started the familiar bassline for Israel's Son again, and... well, enough of that.

To start the set off, they played Red Hat, their moshing instrumental, which drew the biggest roar of the whole event from the crowd. Next they went into the infectious Lost In Life, which I can imagine will have the whole crowd pogoing when Mantra starts to headline their own shows with warm-up bands. After that, they went into my favorite song of theirs, Before It's Gone, which was great to listen to. Their lead singer/guitarist threw some really great jumps in there, he was fun to watch. Next up came Roses On the Floor, which gets better every time they play it (this was my third time seeing them). After that, they played Music Box, which was introduced as a "chick song", and excelled on that. Then they were told to cut their set, and the rest is history...