The eight members of The Mars Volta walk onstage to the Fistful Of Dollars theme, as is their custom since 2005. They take their places behind their instruments. A few drums are hit to warm up. Then – lift off. They launch into an unreleased composition that’s become known to fans as Jakob. Vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala exhibits a childlike energy from the moment the music begins. Whipping his conspicuous white microphone cord and writhing around the stage, he fawns before the photographers; lying on his stomach and singing into an on-stage fan. A moment later, he scatters the photo pit by jumping down and parading before those in the first row. He tears a black sheet from the front of stage and climbs back up to wear it as a cape, microphone cable held between his clenched teeth, before discarding his impromptu prop into the crowd’s maw.

While these antics are amusing, they soon take a backseat to the band’s precise musicianship. To confine their music to the ‘prog rock’ tag is shallow. Their navigation of improbably complex, consistently intense compositions over two-and-a-half hours is testament to their talent and concentration. The eye is restless throughout the performance: eight members produce an abundance of movement and sound. An enormous painted backdrop is replaced by two equally impressive pieces as the set proceeds. The show’s sound is seemingly hiccup-free – an admirable effort when considering the enormity of the group’s bombastic style.

Following the unfamiliar new song is Viscera Eyes, from Amputecture. It follows a more conventional structure than their other songs; the riff repeated throughout, is one of the few times that second guitarist Paul Hinojos is audible above his bandmates. He’s busy throughout, but appears to follow the bass progressions while Omar Rodriguez-Lopez adds layers of effected lead guitar. The band’s creative visionary has stated that his vast array of effect pedals are his allies in a war against the guitar; Rodriguez-Lopez utilises dozens of them tonight to modify the output of his custom white Ibanez. A stunning reading of Viscera Eyes concludes, and it’s difficult to comprehend that the band has already reached such heights not an hour into the show.

Central to the band’s intensity is Thomas Pridgen, who has manned the band’s drumkit since 2007. Complex rhythmic structures that’d spin the head of any mere mortal are handled with consummate ease. Applying fills and variations to the skins of his transparent kit, all the while grinning and maintaining the song’s metre. His precision and dexterity are immeasurable. It is difficult to recall a more impressive individual performance.

Goliath is attacked at breakneck speed, as Cedric spits the chorus at full pace and his band-mates apply rollerblades to keep up. An extended, minimalist section in the middle of the song causes attention to waver, but it’s soon reigned in, as Pridgen utterly pummels his kit during the climax. Three songs from The Bedlam In Goliath are represented tonight. Each forming a compelling argument that their most recent material is their most accomplished: Adrian Terrazas-Gonzalez’s saxophone-led section in the latter half of Aberinkula is their most exciting arrangement conceived thus far. Juan Alderete’s serpentine bass-line keeps the piece together, before Rodriguez-Lopez replicates the spiralling woodwind riff on his guitar.

A fearsome reading of Ouroborous finds Pridgen’s frenetic drumbeat driving both guitars, which take on a swarming quality akin to stirring up a hornet’s nest. Tetragrammaton is sliced and mixed almost beyond recognition. This is the nature of the band’s live show. The FasterLouder review of Tuesday’s show in Perth mentioned he futility of wishing for particular tracks: instead, become completely immersed in the sound and energy of the night.

To confine the band’s creative output to the abstract notion of time is doing them a disservice; and fittingly, it’s a forty-minute long version of Cygnus… Vismund Cygnus that is the set’s towering climax.

Toward the end of the song, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez stood in the centre of the musical cyclone. The head-nodding and foot-tapping figure of The Mars Volta’s producer, and creative director indicates that he’s pleased by their performance tonight. He faces Thomas Pridgen and conducts him – and by extension, his attentive band-mates – to start and stop playing on command. It’s far from a master-servant exhibition: each face is smiling as the trick ventures toward the ridiculous and hilarious, but one admires the alternating restraint and unbridled intensity that Rodriguez-Lopez demands of his fellow musicians.

A truly outstanding performance by an exceptional group of musicians.