This was approx my 30th Tool show. I don't feel like scrolling though the archives to count but give or take...

First, to all those complaining about things like "Maynard is barely visible" or, "he skipped the end of Vicarious" who then claim to be true fans... give me a break. You claim you are are true fans yet you still don't know that MJK doesn't approach the front of the stage nowadays, and you haven't heard that he skips the high notes at the end of Vicarious? (sbagheri's review was particularly clueless) If you wanted to see Maynard screaming and flipping out like the old days you should have gotten your shit together and went to see them back then. Unfortunately there's this construct called time and it has consequences such as a 46 year old man can't scream like a 30 year old man. Not to be a fanboy but let's be realistic here. Did you really expect him to come out with the old pink pjs and Doc Martins while gargling nails? Just a reality check. By the way, anyone who claims to be a Tool fan and tells me they've seen them only once just now in the 18 years they've been around... I just don't take seriously... you're just talking shit.

Sorry for the rant. Quick review. Line for show was truly brutal as mentioned. Other items of note...

We definitely got some new material from them. Little snippets here and there. In particular Justin played a bassline before Vicarious that sounded great and pretty well structured in that it could be part of a song. Sounded bright and uplifting rather than dark and disturbing for lack of a better description.

The crowd was good and intoxicated. Was in the front section and everyone near us was rocking out pretty hard. The band seemed to feed off of it. Maynard especially. I know he doesn't thrash like the old days, but by today's MJK standards he was lively.

The Tool we got on this night wasn't the tightest I've ever seen them, but the energy was there despite some miscues. Lateralus was particularly sloppy and Justin's bass took a shit towards the end of Aenima, and a couple jams didn't work out perfectly but the band was going for it and into it. Danny had a great night. I've seen the Lateralus drum off thing a bunch now and this was the best I've seen. The drummer from the opener did the right thing and just hit as hard as he could. Danny also crushed Forty-Six and 2 as the spotlight (in the form of a masonic symbol) was on him. Glad to see him take a little extra credit.

Maynard did great on The Patient. He sounded like 2001 again on that song. He seemed to push it on Intolerance as well. Nice to hear those songs back to back. They truly are two of the bands more punishing hard hitting songs. Great stuff.

It's been awesome to see this band evolve from the raw emotion days to the consummate pros they are now. Overall this show is definitely in the top 10 of the 30 or so shows I've seen. It was a Friday night in Vegas and they were there to party with us... that was the vibe and it was a good one.