well I guess I luckily arrived late and missed melt banana. my friend even asked a guy beside us if they'd already played and he said "yeah, but you didn't miss anything."

oh well onto TOOL.

Jambi is probably my favorite song off 10k days, but I just don't agree with it as an opener. I mean it's good, but there are at least 5 better songs to open with in their catalog. it's like "10,000 days came out last year! you can spice it up now!" in 2002 they were opening with sober and cold & ugly, why can't we get an old school opener now (that's not stinkfist)?

from where we were standing (floor, adam's side, on the fringes of the pit) maynard sounded really drowned out and the bass was almost overwhelming. but it was still more than could be said about the sound at the d.c. show. nothing against the verizon center, we just had the bad luck of being seated in some kind of acoustical vortex of crappiness I think. so in that regard baltimore arena was a better experience.

I saw the string from 46 & 2 to rosetta coming like a lot of people probably did from a mile away so I just enjoyed those songs for what they are (no lost keys??) but then I knew it was either going to be right in two (I was hoping not) or either pushit or flood either one I would love to hear. they didn't disappoint me with flood (the FULL ALBUM VERSION). I mean seriously, I can't find another point in their entire touring career where they've busted that out except as an opener down under in the spring of 02. so I was savoring that moment about as much as humanly possible. it seemed like a lot of people around me didn't know what song they were starting. I was yelling out "HERE COMES THE WATER" like a madman but everyone was just standing there not comprehending. whatever.

after that it really didn't matter what they played. I was glad to see maynard made it through wings without bitching out due to flash photography or projectiles or heckling or whatever seems to be the problem in pulling that song off. I was actually relieved at the end that nothing happened and the crowd was respectful, something maynard addressed after lateralus. maybe they've been reading all the bitching about the setlists on the sites like this about the repetitive setlists and it sort of came to a head when maynard talked about "it takes much strength and precision to pull these songs off every night and when you behave you get a much better show" or something to that effect.

I almost felt jipped when he said "here's another song about paris hilton" and as a good behavior reward they were going to play aenema but alas it was the old vicarious. blah. but it was still awesome. ok I'll shut up now.