What can I say? This set was simply full of dissapointment for me.

I was introduced to Tool officially when I saw them perform in Prague last summer. At that show they blew me away, it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen (and I had recently watched 2 consecutive nights of Radiohead which had gone so far above and beyond any concert I had been to before). Then I saw them when they played Tweeter Center in Mansfield, Mass and they had changed the stage set up and added the laser show, but the set list was essentially the same (They had switched sober and right in two out to play 10,000 days). then this year, I got to see pretty much the exact same show in orlando and then in Blatimore, but those times I got Pushit and Flood pretty much out of nowhere.

Then I really got my hopes up for Bonnaroo considering the 2.5 hour set allotted to them.

Now, let me say, it was much more difficult to find the drugs i wanted than I had been told it would be and I merely had a few crappy shrooms with me when i sat down for tool, fortunately a kind hippie chick wandering through the crowd sat down in front of me and asked me if I wanted acid just about a half hour before the show. Bless her heart, it actually made the set somewhat significant for me.

But let's face it, Tool pummeled through the setlist like they were late for an appointment. There was no jamming in between songs and they didn't have an intermission or an encore which they've done every other time I've seen them. Not that I'm a huge fan of intermissions or that break before an encore, but my point is they seemed very much in a hurry to be done with the set. I was really hoping they had something special planned for this show and I saw nothing that I hadn't seen before, most of which I've now seen 5 times be pretty much exactly the same.

Except Tom Morello in Lateralus, that was nothing short of awesome.

As for the flash photography, I would argue that Tool fans are far from the blame there. In Orlando, there was flash photography going on, but when 10,000 days began and Maynard requested they stop for that song, the audience immediately complied. In Baltimore there was no flash photography that I saw at all. It's new, casual fans and people who simply aren't fans but were checking them out since they were the headliners that should be blamed.

I also don't think the band should expect anything less at a show like Bonnaroo. There are so many people, of course a good number of them won't respect you or the music, so don't play a song that you don't want to see disrespected. I guarantee you most of that crowd still has no idea what that sing is about.

To get off the stage 45 minutes early was really lame. To only play songs you've been playing the entire tour is lame. To not jam at all is lame.

Honestly, I think Tool should tour with the Flaming Lips and Radiohead and try to learn something from them. I think for a singular show experience Tool blows each of those bands away, but as for giving their fans something incredible time after time, it almost seems like they don't care and honestly, I'm starting to believe that they really don't.

I have tickets to see them one more time this summer, but I'm looking to that show not as one more awesome show I get to go to (although it very much is), but more of a farewell to a stage of my life that Tool guided me through and a farewell to seeing them live until I have some reason to believe I will get something new from them. Honestly, I'm getting just as much pleasure finding bootleg videos of their shows from Aenima and Lateralus tours.

I can't believe I haven't heard H. yet and they didn't play Third Eye at Bonnaroo.

Flood is fantastic, I'm glad it's back in the show. At the very least they should have thrown more stuff in that they'd played this tour (Pushit, Opiate, Sober, Right in Two, Lost Keys) and filled the 2.5 hours.

Although I still danced my ass off and learned a few things about myself. Disappointing or not, it's still going to church.

P.S. Seriously though, the Police are the most overrated band of the year. Their set was boring. They're just Great Britain's Bon Jovi. Everyone needs to stop wetting themselves over a mediocre band reuniting.