magnolia

Well, it was my first Tool show, and they obviously blew me away. I had previously seen a video of them during the Lateralus tour, and Maynard seemed a bit off-key, so I was somewhat worried going in... but he sung absolutely perfectly. Sent chills down my spine. Especially the soaring end of Vicarious ("Vicariously I live while the whole world dies").

I think as Maynard was speaking at the beginning, he said "I don't even have the actual album... I downloaded it". Seems he's got a good sense of humor about the leak. I can't believe they opened with Lost Keys/Rosetta Stoned... it was soooo heavy. If they made any mistakes during their set, I was completely ignorant to them... they played incredibly well. The acoustics in The Paramount were phenomenal... and the lounge had a drink special called "The Undertow"... it was Jagermeister mixed with some kind of energy drink.

The visuals were awesome... they implemented some album art, like the cover and some of the 3D stuff from the stereoscopic liner art. Adam's talkbox solo in Jambi was pretty much exactly like the album... really fucking haunting. I love that song. One interesting little change I noticed was during Aenima -- instead of singing "Fuck L. Ron Hubbard and fuck all his clones", he sung "Fuck Rupert Murdoch and fuck all his clones"

The merchandise table consisted of T-Shirts, a girl tee, and a pair of underwear... all of which featured new art (all had the new logo). A few had the tour dates on the back, the black one was cool... but I really don't like the new logo so I didn't buy anything. Maybe if they had some older T's on sale I would have...

Incredible show though... wow. I loved the small venue, it was so personal. God damn that 46 & 2 drum solo... god damn it. Carey is fucking ridiculous. His double-bass shook the bejesus outta me! Wow.

Very very good show... I was kinda hoping for "The Grudge", but having Rosetta Stoned definately made up for it.

Oh and there were camera phones everywhere so I'm sure pics will be posted soon.