Oldie9694

This was the most visually-impaired show I've ever been to; I was off to the side & couldn't see Danny at all, other than when he stood up. This sucked; I'd been looking forward to seeing him play, he's great. The amp stacks/monitors also blocked most of the background video screens; tough luck for me.
I consider myself lucky to have gone at all, though; until now, something bad happened to keep me away from every tour. In '92 (or thereabouts), I didn't find out about their local show until the day after; for Aenema, I got a ticket, but the venue (The Strand, Providence RI) was oversold & we couldn't get in; for Lateralus, my own extreme poverty intervened. When I saw that they canceled or postponed some shows on this tour, I thought the Gods were preparing to intervene against me again, but they didn't, so I shouldn't complain.
I think it's obvious that the Tweeter Center has sound quality variations; many had trouble with that, but I had none, I could hear all the instruments/vocals well, and very loud (Section 1).
I stopped reading the concert reviews weeks ago so that I'd be surprised by the setlist, and since I'm only seeing them once on this tour, the fact that they aren't changing it hasn't bothered me. If I could've chosen the songs, yes, I'd have moved some things around, but since (to me) Tool has no songs that I didn't want to hear, it was no problem (I love Pink Floyd, but don't care for Money; I love Guns 'N Roses, but HATE Sweet Child O' Mine). Is anyone else out there pining for The Grudge?
Many bands seem to go through the motions live, almost sounding like cover versions of their own songs, while Tool was aggressively doing what they do; everything sounded great.
A couple of questions for the know-everything (I'm not being sarcastic; I'm looking for help) Tool-heads out there: I've heard about a spring tour - is that supposed to return to the U.S.?
The other question: a couple of years ago, maybe just after they finished the Lateralus tour, I read (online) an interview (in a music magazine) with a member of Tool (maybe Danny, but I'm not sure). Danny or whoever was asked about when fans could expect the next album, and answered that it first depended on what Tool decided to do, because there were two ways to go: either a regular album, or a concept album, because they had an idea for one that they were eventually going to do, and the concept album would take longer. The interview mentioned the concept being like The Wall (Pink Floyd); I'm not sure if the interviewer or Tool member said that. I didn't save the interview, and never heard another peep about it anywhere. Does this ring any bells for anyone? A Tool concept album would be very interesting.