hackshadows

Only the most overused cliche is applicable:

Holy.

Fucking.

Shit.

Loved it, loved it, loved it. The fifth time I've seen Tool, and this was probably the best. The first time I saw them (at Festering Hole, er, Festival Hall, on the Aenima tour back in 1997) will probably be a sentimental favorite, but this was seriously out of control. InfiniteReality said it best, this was everything that the Big Day Out was not. I'm so glad the Big Day Out was first. If I went to the BDO now it would be such a let down. Save the best for last. This was so much better.

The sound, oh my god, the sound. So hugely, ferociously, massive. And yet SO perfectly clear. How great is the Myer Music Bowl. I've seen the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra there before and you can hear every nuace of every instrument. When I heard Tool were playing there I was rapt. The venue was so spot on. When Tool came out to the roaring crowd and Adam cranked the feedback on his guitar for ages you could tell it was going to be huge. But when they slammed into the opening chords of Stinkfist, it was so much bigger than you thought it would be. Adam's guitar was savage and beautiful, Justin's Bass plumbed new depths of the sonic deep end, Danny's snare crackled and snapped clearly and the rest of his kit sounded like an avalanche as he pounded the everfucking christ out of it. And that gong hit at the end of Lateralus.... Aaaahhh fuck yeah.

Going from Lost Keys/Rosetta Stoned into Wings For Marie/10,000 Days was truly a thing to behold. I was starting to feel somewhat overwhelmed. How the fuck do they do it, seriously.

The crowd was SO much better than the Big Day Out dickheads on Sunday. And the security were being really tight with idiots who tried to crowdsurf or get up on other people's shoulders. Thank dear sweet Jeebus for that. I didn't have seats, but didn't mind at all. Seats would have been awesome, but where I was was just great. About half way up the hill on the grass, I could see the whole band clearly right throughout the show, and as stated above, the sound was immaculate. The lighting show and lasers, etc, was super impressive and created a very trippy, imaginative atmosphere which accompanied the music well. The screens behind the band had the usual insane schitzophrenic mindfuck going on. How awesome is that double-time section in the middle of Schism. I really hope they record that shit, it improves the song immensely.

Danny Carey's drum break on Forty Six and 2 gets more and more insane every time I hear it. Adam's guitar sounds like no other guitar I've ever heard before. How can one man with six strings and an amplifier sound so different to other men and women with six strings and amplifiers? His genius is his deceptive simplicity, I'm convinced. Justin was rocking out harder than I've ever seen him before. He was genuinely loving what they were doing, and so he should. And Maynard, je-sus. I've seen the Nard quite a few times over the years with APC and Tool, he just keeps getting weirder. I had to laugh during the guitar and talk-box solo break in Jambi with Maynard waving his hat around his head like he's trying to stay on a bull at a rodeo. Such madness, but somehow it fits.

There was one guy who got all the way up on top of the roof/sail thing that goes over the stage. I imagine the cops standing there arguing about who was going to go up and get him down. He probably got the shit beaten out of him when he got down. Oh well, better than falling all that way down, I guess. But admit it, you felt the bloodlust and were hoping, just a little, that he would have come tumbling down. You all feel the same, don't lie.

They said they'd be back in December. They had bloody well better. They played so well and played so many great songs, but they could have played SO many more. Opiate, Sober, Prison Sex, Flood, Eulogy, Pushit, Third Eye, The Grudge, The Patient, Parabola, Disposition/Reflection, The Pot, Right in Two, when you think about it, they could have played for another couple of hours and still had room for encores. I guess that's what happens with bands who stick around for so long, their catalogue becomes harder to cover.

I wonder what Tool think of their Australian fans when at the end of both of the Melbourne shows, when the band was throwing drum sticks/water bottles etc out to the crowd and waving, hugging etc, when the crowd starts chanting in loud deep voices "DAAAAA-NEEEEEEEEE, DAAAAAAAA-NEEEEEEEEE, DAAAAAAAAA-NEEEEEEEEE" (think DAAA-RYL from the Simpsons).

They either think that we're all awesome or that we're all dickheads. I don't really care either way, just as long as they remember us and come back.