Lèle

My third Tool gig - maybe the greatest one...

1p.m.: I turn up in front of the Halle, expecting a lot of folk to be already waiting... No one.
2p.m.: having a stroll around there, I come across Justin Chancellor on a bike!
3p.m.: there are 3 of us in the queue. Here we go for a loooong wait in an icy rain (at least I'm sure to stand in the front row)...
6p.m.: a security guy is like: «*...no bottles; if you smoke, you're history; if you «*slam*» (that's how we say that in French, I'm not sure about the translation...) you're history; if you take photos, you're history...*». After being frisked like terrorists and lined up (then, a friendly woman tells us that only 2000 tickets have been sold), we step into the Halle Tony Garnier (a former abattoir, by the way)...

A while later, Mastodon start playing (better than those gruesome bad-tasted sets gave you to assume...). Before the stage, a kind of creepy Nazi and his colleagues are ready to throw out the slightest outlaw (which they did many times).
At last, our four heroes hit the stage! MJK has dropped his high-heels cowboy boots (which weren't really fit to move on stage, obviously), and wears a fluo orange tracksuit (quickly taken off, with the female audience's whistlings...).
After Stinkfist (not as spectacular as Lost Keys as an intro – but maybe they're sick of always starting with the same song...), MJK: «*I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is:...we don't speak French.*» («*c'est pas grave, on t'aime quand même!!!*»). «*Now, the good news: we do speak music...*» («yyeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!!!!!*») - then, he said something about Germany which made some laugh, but I didn't catch it...

Good points:
- the sound was decent;
- unlike during the summer tour, the guys were in a great form (except, maybe, Adam who always looks a little sickly – come on, cheer up; we love you!!);
- you didn't have to wonder if you were gonna be trampled to death or just suffocated, as in Paris last June;
- it was Tool, they played their guts-gripping Tool music, and I was standing just a couple of metres from them...;

Regrets:
- even so, the sound was not as accurate as in Paris;
- the setlist mostly included songs from 10 000 days, which isn't my favourite album;
- I haven't caught anything of what they flung;
- and of course (same as ever), it was TOO SHORT!! (and would have been, have they played 3 days non-stop)...

In the end, the guys started throwing things at the crowd (pieces of drums, bottles of water,...) and fooling around (Danny tries to intercept what Maynard throws; Maynard screws up and doesn't throw far enough a bottle, so points his finger at Danny with an innocent look,...). Then they leave the stage, waving to us far more warmly than they had done in June...
Can't they set about a third tour?...