First off, let me mirror everyone else's excitement about Pushit. I remember a few years ago hearing it done 2 different ways (between 3 shows) and loving it. By far their best song (well, that and Flood).

Before I post my thoughts, let me just say I have been to every TOOL show in the New Orleans area (except for Lollapallooza in 95). I was even at the show when Maynard pulled the "Fuck Me, I'd Fuck Me" from Silence of the Lambs for Undertow tour. With that said...

Not by any fault of the band, this show wasn't that great. The band played very well, but this is just the worst venue for a concert. The sound bounces all over the place causing tons of distortion, and Maynard could hardly be heard. Not sure if he was having vocal problems and they were masking it, or if he just can't sing the highs anymore. They played here for their Lateralus tour, and I felt the same way. That tour was great (saw both Houston and Voodoo), but it sucked here at this venue. I see many people praising how great the show was, and that is mainly due to the fact that they are TOOL fans and are a bit biased (I am a fan as well, of course, but I try to see every show as non-biased as possible).

The only other thing I didn't like was the song selection. I love the epic songs on CD, and I do like to see them performed live, but there needs to be a better mix of the long songs with some earlier short ones. By doing this, they could play a few more songs and leave people enjoying it that much more. Minor complaint, but something I noticed. In fact, they really went out of their way to lengthen and draw out some songs.

All in all, it was a good show, but it wasn't great. I usually travel to Houston to see them, though I couldn't this last year. So I didn't have anything to compare this to. But I did enjoy my time, although if I weren't a TOOL fanatic, I probably would have disliked the show.