drostj2

my 2nd show. very excellent. no complaints will be made in this post because ppl who do complain about tool shows don't seem very grateful for how good they really are.


preshow - hartford's a decent town. for me it was a two hour commute. read an interesting interview of justin in some hartford gazette thing. kinda funny. fans seemed very excited (as they should be). Before Isis started i was walking around talking to security and stagehands and whatnot about this and that. just killing time. spotted the set list ahead of time. it was the same as all the other dates before hand.

Isis - better than what I've been told about on these here reviews. It seemed like a band that refused to give up their (semi) hardcore sound but then tried as hard as they could to sound like tool. I'm not a fan of hardcore bands at all but they gave it the best effort i've seen yet. it was decent. also it was the keyboardist/lead guitarist's birthday today (i believe his name was greg). they played a handful of songs and didn't belabor their preformance.

Tool - excellent preformance. they had excellent lights for this show and came out strong with stinkfist. the visuals were very cool; not many from the last time i saw them (their last date in syracuse). the particular jumbotron screen that was facing me was slightly on the fritz but oh well.

sound quality - the quality of sound was the best part of the whole preformance. even for an ice hockey rink it sounded great. i had heard the hartford civic center had decent sound and i was not disappointed. very happy about that. i was surprised how much justin's bass playing is used in creating the illusion of two guitars. i know they were doing some weird effects and he was hitting very high notes. impressive to say the least. if i had to rank the level of musicianship i would say Danny, Maynard, and a tie between Adam and Justin (there was a few mistakes but no biggie).

muscianship - maynard did very well. he reserved himself in the beginning but not too much. rosetta stoned was where he was reeeeaaaallly ripping it up (IMO). justin seemed very in the groove and i thought it was neat that he stood for every song EXCEPT Wings/10K Days (they brought a stool out). Danny played incredible. I couldn't tell from my seat but he may have been singing back-up vocals (i know i heard back-up vox but adam and justin were definitely not mic'd). Adam played almost flawlessly and had some neato variations in some songs. His talkbox solo was on point (except for one particular note but it was no big deal).

maynard - his dancing was very funny. all cowboy related. at one point i think he did the "lawnmower". he didn't talk much but from what i've been told about the latest preformances he spoke more than usual. Before stinkfist he said "wwwwwaaake up!" When the band took the onstage break he did not go elsewhere. he sat right with the rest of the band. then there was a joke about how pittsburgh was louder and their city practically sounds like "Titsburgh". after a few comments about the crowd he said "Next stop: Jersey" (LOUD BOOS from the crowd). MJK: "Peace... Out..." that was it.

visuals/props - a much different setup from the lateralus tour. all white stage (with stage hands wearing white ponchos). the stage became a screen and prolly looked incredible from the nosebleed section. no props of any kind except for a string of lights display designed like the three blue faces (you know that particular painting). the lasers were very neat and some (as well as some particular lights) looked cool when projected on the crowd (it's tough to take your eyes off the band tho). plenty of strobe, plenty of lights timed with the music. solid visuals.

songs - there were some synth intros for ALOT of songs (two that stand out are schism and vicarious; i think schism was the first of many). a few songs into the set maynard started playing a synth that was on a swivel stand. he used it more extensively in wings/10k days. the new faster bridge in schism is reaally really good. song of the night IMO was rosetta stoned. And for those that said the vocals were all screwy when he was using the megaphone: i did not find this apparent. you need to expect some distortion (that's why he's using a megaphone) but overall the words came thru clear enough.

other - maynard often took off his cowboy hat and revealed a cool mohawk. the lasers didn't get used very much until wings/10K days. i like how they reserved their lights and didn't blow their visual load. at the end of the whole preformance some drum heads (with symbols on them) were flung into the crowd. also because the crowd enjoyed the preformance so much and cheered so loud at the end, to appease the crowd maynard coaxed the band into a group hug. it was funny.


that's it. great show. no complaints. hope there's a post-europe tour with a venue around here. piece.