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Old 11-20-2006, 08:18 AM   #5
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Vienna, Austria
Posts: 3
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Re: 2006/11/19 - Vienna, AUT - Stadthalle

Vienna, the city of music. From Mozart to Tool. Tool honored the city and played an amazing show. Perhaps it also had something to do with it being Justin's birthday. It was definitely a treat, a gift full of sacred geometry writ in green lights, electric red evolutions on the screen, the cosmic view from Saturn.
Last time I saw Tool was in Berlin back in June. I came to this show with little to no expectations. Last night I walked away from the show reborn, every cell in my body tingling with energy. If there are such states as the divine, in which there are celestial choirs singing unceasingly round some eternal throne, then Tool is their human personfication/incarnation. Hammers divine, relentlessly beating this lead into gold. It was a gesture of the Tool of former years. They played with no quarter. (No, not the song, but the spirit, with a message that must get through).
You could really feel the synergy last night--the anger, the beauty, the desire that is Tool's music. There were no so-called highlights. Every song was sung full to the brim, overflowing--except Maynard's intentional silence at the end of Vicarious. When I heard Swamp Song I was sad and happy knowing we weren't going to get Wings 1 & 2. Happy, no thrilled and quickly enchanted, as Swamp Song had new life breathed into it by a mature, come-into-their-full-powers Tool. The slight echo, here and in the other songs, definitely gave MJK this vulnerable, ethereal but powerful edge. After Swamp Song they took their customary break and busted out into Wings. I finally got what I had been waiting for since the album came out. Completely inspiring.

I'm not exactly sure when Maynard said his few bits but here they are as I remember them. Somewhere early on, maybe after Jambi, MJK said, "So, your boy just got elected again. What's next, the world?"
And then before Vicarious after he had put on the gas mask, he said, "You love your cigarettes. I love my throat. It's Justin's birthday. Give him your cigarettes. It's (just) a thought." Then something about coming back in the summer. Yes, when they played Ænima, MJK used a few lines to sing happy birthday. Did anyone catch if he switched out L. Ron Hubbard for someone else? I thought he did, but it was slightly muffled.

All in all, definitely one of the better shows. And for those who care... Losing yourself to the music and the sights, you begin to feel alive once again. That things are possible. That those who are trying to engineer some kind of armageddon can still be overcome. If only you would allow the music to transform you...

Thank you Tool.
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"The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears."
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