TypicalLurker

Thankies.

Written on 8/28/06 (early morning, the day after the concert [would have posted it then, but couldn't]).


I just got back from my first Tool concert!

Anyway, the drive there was nice, cool scenery despite it being so barren. The view at The Gorge is awesome. If you look behind the theater it's a big canyon with the Columbia River snaking through it. We arrived at about 6pm and wandered around.

Isis started at 8pm, but I didn't like them. The second the singer roared I was instantly turned off. Yick. They played three songs, then Tool came on at 9:15pm.

My friend and I were in the 30th row on the floor in section C. I would have had a great view but everybody in front of us stood up on their chairs, and I'm a short guy so I couldn't see anything! I could basically just see Maynard and Adam the whole night, if and that's if I tilted my head right. I got a headache from the excessive amounts of cigarette smoke, but I tried not to let it get to me. I was also really hungry and the concession stands didn't take debit, so I kind of screwed myself there. My friend and I should have sat in the grass, but oh well! Lots of drunk people around too. The guy to my left was smoking weed, the guy to my right was smoking cigarettes. This guy two rows ahead of me was drunk as hell. At one point he spilled his beer on his chair and kept wiping at it with his hand to get it off. There were also these two guys trying to get everybody to push the chairs down so they could mosh once the concert started (they didn't follow through). I wish people would have just sat down let us enjoy the show!

I was hoping for Third Eye as the opener, but I knew they wouldn't play it. Stinkfist was pretty good. Just the usual song. Right before the song started Maynard said "Blah blah blah". The stage burst green and with my very small view, I saw The Nard sporting tight jeans, glasses, and a mohawk.

The Pot was alright, but I don't like much anything from 10,000 Days. I think during this song someone threw a hat on stage, and Maynard threw it off a bit later. This girl in front of us was dancing kind of funny, and the guy to my left offered her whatever he was smoking, and smoke she did.

Forty-six and 2 had cool lighting. I was really hoping to see Danny, but his entire head was blocked by one of his cymbals.

Jambi... don't like that song much. I had a great view of Adam using the voicebox thing though. That was pretty cool. I'm not sure when he said it, but Maynard said "wake up, you drunk bitches" somewhere around here.

Schism was great. Before the quiet part, they extended it and were playing pretty upbeat and it was awesome. They really rocked on that song.

They played Lost Keys before Rosetta Stoned, which I really liked. During Rosetta Stoned I was getting really hungry so I sat down during most of it. Don't like that song much anyway.

Then they played OPIATE! I stood right up. Finally a song I really really like. I was drumming the Danny and dancing around on my chair. Maynard did long pauses during the end between "If you want to get your soul to Heaven"... "Trust in me...". Somehow the smoking/dancing girl that I mentioned before ended up standing next to me, and I accidentally hit her arm really hard (it hurt me at least) while air drumming. Oops! She didn't seem to notice/care though.

Merkaba was played before Sober, which was really intense. Lots of lighting. Crowd seemed to enjoy Sober a lot. They had some extra keyboard noise or something before "I am just a worthless liar...".

Lateralus was the best performed song of the night. Such cool lighting, awesome song, awesome drumming (again I was drumming with Danny). They didn't extend the "dun nuh nuh nuh" part like they did during the Lateralus tour. After this song the band sat down together and everybody in the audience put their lighters up. It was really cool, gave a nice ambience.

I knew they had to play Vicarious, and did as expected. This song had lasers. Yay.

Ænima, the typical closer of this tour, really awesome. Crowd was really into it. After the song Adam held his guitar up, the crowd cheered. Danny came up and threw a couple drumsticks, threw one of his toms to Adam, and they both threw them into the crowd. Someone also threw a pink buttonup shirt onto the stage.

They played from 9:15pm-11pm. The performance was great, the crowd around me was not.

Getting out was hectic. Had to wait around for a while, then people started leaving from this gate in the back... I kind of cut this one girl in an orange mustang off, so if you read this, sorry! The staff was trying to close the gate, they wanted people to go back. My friend and I were the last couple people to get through. It led to the interstate anyway, so I wonder why they didn't want people leaving through there. The road was pitch black; no lights on the streets, so we had to rely on our car's lights. We stopped at a gas station where I paid 5 dollars for a Gatorade, a Clif Bar, and a Snickers... not to mention 17 dollars for gas (I think it was something like $3.28 there?)... talk about highway robbery!

That's about it.... my throat is killing me; must be the smoke and lack of water... not a good combo for your throat.

I wish I could be there again though. Funny how such wonderful day easily becomes nothing more than a dream once it's over.