This was my first Tool show. I drove up from Austin to see it. I was totally blown away by the concert, and I won't repeat what others have already said. I don't know if I have ever seen a more enjoyable concert in my life.

Having said that, here's some of my observations.

I paid $200 for a seat in the row directly in front of the sound engineer. I thought the sound at that seat would be as good as any in the Nokia Theater, but I could barely "hear" Maynards vocals, due to what seemed to me was a bad mix. From the posts, it seems like others heard him much more clearly than I did. The sound was so loud, the bass drums vibrated my nostrils. That is not an exaggeration. The sound was LOUD, and I was disappointed that they chose loudness over quality. I couldn't tell you what words Maynard was saying or singing, and I certainly couldn't tell if Adam or Justin was out of sync at any point. Can anyone who has experience with sound engineering at a concert enlighten me on what the goal for the sound is? If loudness was the goal, then they did a good job!

As loud as the sound was, one of the coolest parts was that I could hear the crowd singing the lyrics during many of the songs. There's no doubt in my mind that the Nokia Theater had a high concentration of extremely hard core Tool fans. Surely the members of Tool are very appreciative of the Dallas crowd, which was the best group of fans I've seen at any concert. The great Dallas crowd was a big part of what made the evening so enjoyable for me.

The stage and light show was perfectly framed from my vantage point, which makes up for the sound problems. I knew the show would be visually stimulating, but I had no idea it would be that great. It was eye candy. True art.

Knowing what I now know, would I do it again? Without a doubt.