A Review of the Fall 1996 Tour

Date: November 5


From: "Paul Fountain" (cyrille@ix.netcom.com) Before I start the review, I would like to say one thing: STOP MOSHING DAMMIT! Anyway, this was my first chance ever to see Tool live, so I was totally pumped. My cousin & I arrived about an hour early for the show, there were some people there, getting drunk & high, etc. They had several bars set up so about everyone was some sort of saucy. The one problem was the sound - the mammoth events center is like a converted high school gym, and the sound was bouncing everywhere - it sounded crappy. So The Cows came on. They're not as bad as everyone says! Really! I thought their first two songs were kind of lame, but after that they started to get better, and a few of their songs really kicked ass. However, the crowd had already decided "this band sucks" by that time, so everybody was booing and yelling shit and flipping them off. My advice to The Cows: change up the order of your songs a little bit. Oh, and don't say "We're The Cows" between every damn song. Oh, and don't wear that stupid cow-ears hat. After The Cows took off, the lights went on and they started setting up for Tool. Right at that moment, I saw huge clouds of smoke going up everywhere and smelled that familiar green smell.... Where was I? OK, so they start playing this keyboard music, really slow. Everyone was getting pumped. But then that music went on and on and .... on... Everybody got pretty restless after about 15 minutes of that, and then we had to wait a lot longer, but finally Tool came on! Maynard was painted freakin' blue from head to toe, and Maynard is a very bald man, and he looked like some glowing Star Trek alien up there. They started with Third Eye - damn that was cool! Maynard has these wierd spasms/convulsions on stage - but all very fluid and in sync with the music. He is just cool to watch! You can get a setlist from another review here, but my favorite songs were - Third Eye, 46 & 2, PuShit (YES! AWESOME LIVE!), Prison Sex, Opiate, and Aenema. Really, when I think back, every song was intense and amazing. They are just a great band live. If you have any desire whatsoever to see a glowing blue space alien have controlled convulsions and spasms while singing the most intense songs you've ever heard, I highly recommend a Tool concert near you. just don't mosh dammit.