And now, thoughts on the Tool show. So good. Even the neophytes we dragged along (Tim and Bryce) were impressed.

I had heard a rumour from a friend of mine in the US that Meshuggah, the opener, was some sort of Swedish death metal band. And hey, what so you know, they were. Really not my thing. Tim and I went to grab a beer and checked out the crowd while we waited for their set to be over. It's kind of an ignorant thing to say, but their music all sounded kind of the same to me. I felt a bit vindicated taking this position when Tim met up with one of his friends, a fan of the death metal scene, who said very much the same thing. Perhaps my taste can wander a bit beyond my usual genres . . .

Tool opened with Sober, much to the delight of those who had seen them before and were hoping for something from Undertow at the Vancouver show. From the opening straight through until the end, I basically just stared and listened and tried to be as alert as possible. The animation was again pretty fancy and really added to the whole experience. It was nice that they didn't show exactly the same thing, either. And as Tim mentioned, they did not feature the live-action tentacle porn quite as much this time around, which if you ask me was a good call.

The setup for the stage was pretty similar to the Vancouver show. Danny Carey (still a total freak - so cool to watch) had his own stage for his extensive drum kit plus gong, and Maynard had his little Maynard stage again, this time with its own turntable action. Painted all black and dancing around a lot, he was much more active this time.

Enema was the real highlight for me. There was this really cool rain effect over the pit crowd down in front acheived by sparkly bits and clever lighting. Relevant and effective. And the performance was amazing.

Overall, I think I preferred this show to the last one I saw. I think the flow was a little better in terms of the (sometimes kind of long) breaks during the performance, and I don't think much was lost in dropping the wacky Schism acrobats for whatever reason.