Tool 5/19/06

Set List:

Lost Keys
Rosetta Stoned
Stinkfist
Forty Six & 2
Jambi
Right in Two
Schism
Sober
Lateralus
Vicarious
Ænema

On Friday the 19th I went to see Tool at the New York City Center, a very small venue which holds only around 2,500. The tickets were pretty absurdly hard to obtain but luckily I got one and if I didn’t boy would I have cried. Not only is Tool one of my favorite bands but I honestly feel they are they best band in the past twenty or so years. Every album the release is near perfection, and they should be considering they release them every five years. When you pick up a Tool album you know you are receiving something that has fantastic quality and wasn’t just pushed out there for money. Now back to the show, the band took stage around twenty minutes late but I’m assuming that was because of the fact that many seats were empty. They soon filled up and the curtains rose and I believe only Adam Jones (guitar) and Justin Chancellor (bass) were on stage, next came Danny Carey the most underrated drummer ever and lastly Maynard James Keenan on vocals. They opened up the show with “Lost Keys” which went into “Rosetta Stoned.” The song was great but unfortunately the vocals were way too low, I believe they raised them eventually but throughout the whole show the volume on them was significantly lower than the rest of the instruments. This didn’t exactly deter from the show too much but Maynard has an incredible voice and it would have been nice to hear it with more clarity. The next song played was a Tool classic “Stinkfist” and that really got the crowd going. The band played incredibly and I have officially realized that Danny Carey is one of the top five drummers of all time, too bad for the world he goes pretty unnoticed.

Maynard in his normal fashion cracked a few jokes, one of the funniest was that the word “f*ck” is a gateway word…a gateway word that leads to terrorism, and he apologized for using it earlier in the show, and said that we should use different world such as “poop” and other words of that nature. I’m not going to quote him because I don’t remember it line for line but that was basically it. The last time I saw Maynard was with A Perfect Circle and he made a joke saying “What has 9 arms and sucks?” and then answered “Def Leppard.”

One intersting note about the show is the security at the venue. It was unbelievabely tight, the is the first show where I've seen people thrown out for smoking pot, normally the shows I go to are heavy on pot smoking but I've never seen people actually thrown out. Also the security guards actually were kicking people out for taking pictures. I was pretty cautious and snapped two shots on my phone but didn't use the flash, they didn't come out all that well but the picture seen to the top right is one that I took.

Back to the show, the band played pretty solid but Adam Jones (guitar) sounded like he made a few mistakes and had some technical issues on “Right in Two.” Danny was perfect as always and Maynard was energetic but always places himself in the back of the stage keeping him a bit mysterious. The highlight of the night was “Lateralus,” the crowd was most into that song and rightfully so, they played it flawlessly and with a ton of energy. When their set was over the all sat on stage which I thought was great just waiting for the crowd to get loud enough so they would play again. I love how unconventional they are instead of just going backstage, and at one point Maynard slowly walked off acting like he was leaving and put his hand to his ear and slowly started to walk back as the crowd grew louder and more intense. The encore consisted of “Vicarious” and “Aenema” too solid songs to end the show on a high note. In the end I left the show feeling like it only lasted ten minutes, I must say no show flew by quicker than this one. The set wasn’t short it was just that it felt short, I don’t feel like I got cheated out of a show in any way in fact it was one of my favorites but for some reason it flew by so quick. A fantastic performance by a fantastic band, I can’t wait until they come around again later this year to play larger venues!