Tool - August 12, 2002, Sovereign Bank Arena, Trenton, NJ
Ah, Tool. My most favorite band. How I've long to see them...and now I have. And now that I have I feel the need to talk about it.
The journey begins from my friend's Amy house at about 5:40. Traffic sucked just a bit, but once we got off of the turnpike and onto Rt. 1, everything was just fine. We crossed the bridge into Jersey and made the exit to Rt. 29 into ghetto Trenton. Trust me when I say this. The neighborhood that the arena is in is worse than the neighborhood that the Philly arena's are in.
So we arrive in this cozy little parking spot about a block from the arena. We go over only to have to turn around, cause Amy can't bring in her chain wallet. No biggie, we're thirsty anyway. I did mention ghetto before, cause between the parking lot and the arena is this Mexican food market. Paid a dollar for a Fanta soda. Satisfied my thirst.
Going to the arena, take two. We dispose of excess baggage - wallets and cell phone - in the car and go back to the arena. We go in and have to go to the other side of the arena for our seats.
And damn, those seats were nice. I had no idea of where the seats would be, but we ended up in the second row from the floor. It would have been nice to sit in a better section, but it was good enough. So we sat for about 40 or so minutes until the opening band, Tomahawk, came on.
I had no idea of what Tomahawk would sound like. Tomahawk, for the uninformed, is a Mike Patton band. Mike Patton, you remember, from Faith No More days. Tomahawk, I would say, has a rather eclectic sound of metal and synethizers. I can't spell today. Some of the songs were good, and some of the songs were bad. The performance overall was all right, though many people really didn't like it. I had a felling Patton was there to piss people off, and I found that really humorous. He left the stage, after a full set, with a mixture of applause and boos.
As the break began, we went to get beer, at Amy's suggestion. It worked, surprisingly, since the one we went to didn't card me. My license was in the car anyway, so it was a good to go or no go. We go back and see this guy in my seat talking to the girls sitting next to us. We learned earlier from this random guy that started talking to them that they were 17. The one guy behind us said that he knew one of the doormen to the floor area, and they were off. They showed up on the floor bout 5 minutes later. Funny shit that was.
But now the moment has come. The atmospheric music that set up the mood was in play, and soon the lights dropped. Nothing happened for a while, just the moody music and the ecstatic cheers of people anticipating the moment. It happened, with Adam Jones playing on the left side of the stage, Justin Chancellor playing bass on the right side, and Danny Carey setting up behind the drums on the right side as well. The strangest thing of all is where the man, Maynard James Keenan, stayed. He took his position on a platform behind Jones, and stayed there for the entirety of the show. Not until the end did he come off of the stage. He came out, wearing a full length black body suit. He was shaved bald, but had a black streak running from the back of his head down to I think his lips. From where I was, it was kind of hard to tell.
The band opened up with Sober, a strange choice, but excellent none the less. The back curtain was probably all red, either that or it was the stage lights behind Maynard and Carey that set up the effect. Spotlights were shown on all the members except for Maynard, and was well encased in shadow during the opening number. Graphics played on two white screens setup above the stage. Just to save time, every song had some sort of graphic along with it.
Next on the bill was The Grudge, which is what I expected to be the show opener. The curtain that opened the show dropped to reveal a new one, consisting of a three-headed head situated in the middle of the fabric. There were some other print on either side of it, but it was just some kind of intricate design. The performance itself was fabulous, and watching Maynard screaming during the winding moments of the song was exciting none the less. Stinkfist came next, a slightly longer version of it. The video played was the actual video, but it ended up going from the actual video to random clips of the actual video.
Stinkfist was followed up with Forty-six & 2. Great performance with that. It is one of my favorite songs from them, and seeing it live was great. After that I believe was Mantra, or something like that. That led into Schism, which Maynard busted out his guitar skills. The performance of that song was great, and the accompaning video was strange and brilliant.
A quick break followed the end of Schism, with Tool playing some strange mood music for a few minutes. The stage was covered in darkness, and for a reason. Maynard left the stage, but came back, wearing only a black speedo. The band started into Parabol, which didn't show the part of the song for the new video. They followed through with Parabola, and played the accompaning video for it. Behind them, two...things, which could be described as circular grapevines, or expanding atom molecules, floated and spun around. They stuck around for the next three songs. The song itself was good. Another testament to Tool's awesome display of power.
This was followed up with Aeon Blue Apocalypse, one of the best guitar movements I've ever heard. It was only a minute and a half in length, but still amazing. They followed that with a nice performance of The Patient. I'm not really that fond of the song, but it was good, none the less. They followed that up with an explosive performance of Aenema, one of the greatest Tool songs, in my opinion.
They followed this with a short intermission, somewhere between five and ten minutes. The stage setup was changed around a bit. There were seven banners, each one reflecting each of the inner covers of Lateralus. An interconnecting septagon was up as well. The band came back out, and began with Disposition. During the intermission, I sat down, relaxing my body a bit. Why, who knows. I could still hear the music anyway, and was able to see the stage. Maynard was back with his guitar, but discarded it when Reflection began. He picked it up again when the band shifted into Triad. The performance of these songs were excellent, to say the least. The set there went for nearly over twenty-five minutes, with an extended version of Triad. A snare set was setup for the song as well, with an unknown person playing them.
Then came the time for the concluding song, Lateralus. The song was a great choice for concluding, with its building power throughout the length of it. Afterwards, the band came down and bowed, and Maynard mooned everybody, something that I missed. They left the stage, keeping their usual 'no encore' thing going. I forgot the reason why they don't do encores, but I know it's for a good reason.
Overall thoughts on the show...well, one of two things. One, they didn't perform Ticks & Leeches, my favorite song from them. It was the only song (with the exception of Faaip de Oaid) that they didn't do on the last release, for good reason too. The song itself would be heavily taxing on Maynard's voice, with all the lengthy screams involved in it. The other thing, of course, is the most obvious thing. The show ended!! Gah!!! I wanted more!!! More, I tell you, more!!
In the end though, the show simply rocked. So many words can describe this experience. For now, I'm sticking with great. It took over two years for a show to finally compete with the Nine Inch Nails show at the Spectrum. Rush was right up there with it earlier this summer. Tool outdid both those shows. It was simply amazing. I can now go home and wait for the next one.