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Old 05-17-2006, 11:39 AM   #67
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Join Date: May 2006
Location: Kitchener ON
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Re: 2006/05/16 - Toronto, CAN - Hummingbird Centre

Quote:
Originally Posted by Avail
This was my seventh show, all in the Toronto area, and I have to say it was noticably the worst of the seven. I was sitting centre balcony and I found the sound very muddy, the bass didn't punch through and maynards vocals were washed out.

I also felt the band themselves to be a little 'loose'. I have always found the to be amazingly tight live but last night I could hear a lot of timing mistakes, especially from Adam. He DID mess up the beginning of Lateralus, as well as the beginning of Right in Two. It looked to me like he was fighting his guitar tuning all night.

I think they started to fix some of the level problems towards the end of the show though because for Vicarious and Aenima the vocals were quite clear, although I think Maynard is still feeling his cold, the climactic chorus for Vicarious sounded pretty rough imo.

Still a good show on the whole, but myself (and the other three people I was there with) agreed it was definately not up to par for past performances.
I agree with this post pretty much as is - summed it up well.

Danny Carey carried this show - its the first time I have seen Tool in which I was able to watch him whenever I wanted (previous shows obscured in darkness).

To anyone who thinks that the band jammed to cover up maynard in Lateralus - they did not - they just played the song out as if nothing happened. Good discipline to just keep it going and not let it fall apart, but it wasn't some sort of miraculous spontaneous jam session.

About the crowd - there was a lot less fist pumping / horns / waving etc going on then one might expect, but anyone who expected the crowd to be going apeshit at a seated venue is deluding themselves. The crowd was definitely loud, but not annoyingly so. From where I was the crowd seemed to be on their feet for the whole show, so thats good - were there seriously people sitting in the first few rows?
Then again, I probably would sit if I was that close (nobody obscuring my view) ;)
Overall I would say the crowd was great (better than I expected for sure - I have found most concert crowds around southern ontario to be too tame).

The ushers however had a major impact on the atmosphere. Although I was kind of glad they got the 15 illuminating cellphones out of my view. I wish the people in the middle of the crowd did a better job at hiding their joints, because every time an usher spotted one they ended up shining their lights in 15-20 peoples faces.

Maynard definitely not sounding great (relatively speaking) - probably still fighting off (or succumbing to) a cold.

Some people mentioned technical glitches with the screens - I don't think any descriptions have done this justice - all four were off pretty much the entire RI2 song - 2 of the screens crapped out for long periods - and when they got the one backlighting maynard back on, the color was off and the projection aspect ratio was wrong - but it was funny seeing a tech's shadow as he tried to fix it.

As described above, the sound was "Muddy" - might have had something to do with my seats - I think the mezzanine overhang might have messed with the acoustics of the place for people standing under it like myself. For example - I had a lot of trouble hearing exactly what Maynard was saying when he talked occasionally between songs - caught the gist of most - but I'm glad some people on this board were nice enough to recap.

I LOVED the small change ups in Stinkfist and Sober. Vicarious and Aenema were virtually flawless (aside from Maynards voice) and rocked HARD. Jambi was definitely a highlight for me as well.

Once again I have to give props to Danny - he nailed everything just right - especially the solo in RI2 - that was unbelievable!
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