Duluth show: 7 out of 10: Here's why:

-1: Giant fuck up on Vicarious. How has no one mentioned this? They all were embarassingly off by the last part of the song. We would know b/c we recorded the show and checked after to make sure we had heard it right, and unfortunaly we did. One of the worst fuck ups I have even seen/heard at any live show. I guess odd time signitures cover a lot of mistakes.

-1: Maynard's vocals were lack luster. I'm not speaking of them being low in the mix, I'm talking about messing up verses, not singing cricital parts (Vicarious and Rosetta) and changing lyrics. He seemed to be completely disinterested in Rosetta. Some songs were definitely compromised by this. It's probably really sort of annoying for them I'm sure, but the fans love those parts of the songs and want to sing along with MJK. It's crucial for an optimal live show experience. It leaves me wondering if maybe there was something wrong with MJK's voice... maybe it was shot b/c of 2 consecutive shows in TX just 2 nights before.

The whole thing about MJK's vox being too low in the mix... I think it's by design to follow suit of what is on their records. Tool is never going to (hopefully) be that band that has in your face vox with a frontman... That's the last thing they ever want to be. So if you're reading this and you haven't seen a show yet, just know that Maynard is always in the background and his vox are low in the mix. Visuals and music are the focus, not a frontman.

-1: Setlist. Yes I'm going to beat a dead horse here. To me it seems like they are being lazy and didn't want to learn a new setlist for the mini-tour. Sort of let's do a tour that will make a lot of money, keep us from being too rusty and doesn't require much work... I sort of get that but at the same time, that is very annoying and disappointing. Especially b/c they had liberty to do whatever they wanted since there was no record to promote.

Tool is a mysterious band and lots of mystery surrounds them, but the biggest mystery about Tool that I can see is why the fuck don't they play Eulogy at their live shows? The crowd would go absolutely apeshit. they have so many songs that would be better than Rosetta or Jambi... Flood was freaking crazy amazing.

All that being said, I'm a huge fan. Even on their worst night, you will see an amazing show. My hubby and I spent in excess of $1200 to see them last night (travelled out of state). Not their best, not their worst, but damn fine entertainment for 90 minutes.