brightshadow

Just got home from the 3.5 hour drive (go leadfoot go) -- everyone else has pretty much covered it. They did seem a little rusty on the old tracks here and there (the occasional swapped lyric and a few 'i meant to do that' sounding things on adam's part that didn't necessarily sound bad but were "wrong" :) ), but the 10K songs were very tight; Lost Keys/Rosetta Stoned is not my favorite track on the album but it works well live. (and it's growing on me on the album, as well.. I think Intension is really the only track I feel the urge to skip over anymore.)

I burned $350 for a row E mezz seat right in the center (seat 1, so I got an aisle to stomp in, yay!!) -- I honestly think one of the highlights of the show for me was the entire crowd singing along; the acoustics in the paramount accented it very well, and it was really, really cool to hear a huge part of the crowd belting the songs out.

The other great thing about my seat was that this was the first time I got a _really_ good view of Danny playing, this being my sixth show, but I've always been too far away to see well or on the floor in GA where I have to look over people to see anything (I'm 5'10", but it seems like everyone that likes Tool is NINE FUCKING FEET TALL and has an inexplicable urge to stand right in front of me no matter where I go.) So, yes, Danny is a monster. He makes all of that look totally effortless. Color me impressed, finally; I feel uncoordinated now. Well. I did before, but now I feel REALLY uncoordinated. :D

Maynard intentionally DIDN'T sing the second line of The Pot for a bit, I think to see how many people would sing along with it without him. I was one. Tee hee. :P

All in all, I don't know if it was worth $350, as it was a slightly shorter set than I was hoping for, but the guys looked pretty beat after 90 minutes of solid asskicking. Still, though, you'd think that you'd get an encore out of 'em, even of something downbeat. I held out a little hope that we'd get wings/10,000 days in there, but I suppose that's probably just hard to work into a setlist (kind of like how they didn't play The Patient at first? I think I only got to see that one live on the arena tour, when they toured with KC it didn't get played at either show I attended.)

Anyway, nobody said hi to poor decepticon brightshadow. The girl at the door scanning tickets DID, however, say "nice shirt!" to me as I walked in. That same girl suggested that I chew on a cigarette for a while if I was going to nic-fit when I asked if there was anywhere to go outside and smoke and still get back into the venue. If she wasn't a ticket scanner slave and I wasn't already seeing someone I'd probably have asked her for her number based on the amusing attitude alone. Hah.

Anyway, I'm bushed after 7 hours of driving, 4 hours of standing around outside the venue, and 90 minutes of teh rawk. Goodnight, world.

Oh, one other thing of note. Maynard's voice cracked on a high note at one point. Never heard THAT happen before. Guess nobody's perfect after all. ;)