okay first off, lemme say that i am a big fan, have been since the "old" days. i put tool in my top five favorite bands of all time. now that that's out of the way...
the show sucked.
i was in section 121, maybe 50 yards from the stage. from where i was sitting, it sounded as if the speakers on that side of the stage were BLOWN. you know how a blown speaker sounds? like shit. with a pop and rattle during the low notes. i dont know if the sound booths spl meters were off, or fucked up, or the sound tech was sleeping or what...but the sound was definitely not "right on" AT ALL from where i sat.
for as much as we paid for our tickets, you would think that there wouldn't be a shitty seat in the house, right? now...some may say, "your seats sucked" or "you dont know anything about sound"...blah blah blah. i sat ONE SECTION over (towards the stage no less), at the same level (section 120) for the Trans Siberian Orchestra, which is a loud production as well. guess what? it sounded great. as far as not knowing about sound...yeah fuckin right, im not even gonna discuss that except to say I DO.
the bass was bottoming out the speakers the whole show, man. lyrics? what lyrics? the only reason i knew there were lyrics was because i am familiar with the songs.
as far as the set list being to short...after the sonic bashing i got from the songs they did play, i was almost wishing it was even shorter. fucked up, i know.
now, suffice it to say that i am glad i didnt buy a goddam 40 dollar shirt for a concert that sucked ass so bad i cant even lie to myself and say it was good.
i cant say i will never see tool again. but i can say for fucking sure that i will never see them in an indoor venue again. i dont care if i have to drive to houston (cynthia woods woot woot).
all the tool sycophants posting glowing, maynard ball-sucking reviews need to like...clean your ears and get past the tool factor. i mean... i love the band too...but the guy earlier said it about caring for the fans...every time i have seen pearl jam (and yeah, they are just as good a band as tool musically and personally) they have played over two and a half hours and actually interacted with the crowd like they WANTED to be there...not like they were there to sell tshirts. c'mon dude...there were times when i wanted to hurl myself to the concrete below.
now, the good thing is, i saved a lot of money on my car insurance.
really, tho...when they brought the level down during the lateralus drum presentation and the drum war began, truly amazing. it almost made up for the hour and a half of crap that came before. almost.
maybe next time we will get a performance worthy of our admiration and praise. and yeah, "we should be happy we got to see them and stop bitching and blah blah blah"...STFU. they should be happy that we are their fans. thats the way that shit should work, not the other way around.