I am from Madison, yeah, in Wisconsin. Where TOOL canceled a sold out show in September and NEVER RESCHEDULED! So I had to drive 3 hours to that bum-f$%# town of Cedar Rapids. And the kids there were a$$ holes. We shouldn't have to fight for our lives before the show even starts, and my gf got groped by more people in one night than ever. No doubt I inflicted some pain on a few people in the process (all of which deserved it). And I swear that there is no reason that I will ever visit that f'n state ever again; it doesn't matter who has a show there or who is doing what. I should have gone to the MN show.

Anyway. To the important part.

For those of you who didn't like Melt Banana, well, I can understand but I love them. They are actually a lot better in a smaller venue. It's easier to hear them, and they put on a better show (saw them about 2 years ago as a headliner, don't worry, show was free. Courtesy of the UW.) At points though, and they didn't do this when I saw them, they just kept going with the white noise (which I hate when ANY band does, even TOOL, [Jesus Maynard, are you really getting that old?]) and they needed to stop it.

As for TOOL. Well, I can scratch them off the list of to see now. And the show was amazing. The first few songs I spent attempting to fight off the crowd, then I gave up just about the time they played Schism and started focusing on the show. I am quite happy that they played some older songs such as stinkfist, and Flood (Schizm and Lateralus are not "old.") I must say that 10000 days is an incredibly beautiful song, and between that and Lateralus was probably the second most amazing concert experience of my life. The only thing holding it back was the crowd. Either way it was f'n tool, f'n Maynard, and they put on one hell of a show. And as a former lighting designer, the lights were incredible. Over 40 moving fixtures, including the three rings that moved, and contained moving fixtures. I can tell you that is the most expensive light setup I have EVER seen, simply from all those moving lights.

The only complaint I have from TOOL themselves is that they showed me music videos I've already seen. They could have come up with something original for those songs. Especially Schizm. That video got overplayed in it's day.

To wrap it up. FU IOWA. I enjoyed the show a lot, but only because it was tool. You kids in Iowa need to calm down, get some common sense, and learn that everyone who posted before me is right, this was not a show that required so much pushing and violence. If you were true TOOL fans you'd understand that they are not a violent band. They are a band that is supposed to make you think, and anything they write about violence or destruction is SATIRE. And if you backwater Iowa a$$ holes can't understand that, then well, I'm glad that you're in that state and not mine.

Oh, and since all of you are confused about what Maynard was trying to say. He said that he is from OHIO, and that he can sympathize because he too was from a state that got robbed of a hard consonant. Sound it out. It was a joke, not a compliment. I'm sure they only stopped there because their manager made them. Ha ha.