From: tokra@brem.de (tokra)
Subject: Tool Concert Review Hamburg Feb 20th

Hi Kabir,
  since I noticed there was no review for the concert in Hamburg, I
thought I'll write one, although some time has passed and I don't remember
things that well anymore. Guess I should have written the review right
after the show - but I was too mesmerized back then :-) 

Anyway, this evening 3 friends of mine and I drove the 60 kilometers to
Hamburg to see "Tool" for the first time. I've been a fan of theirs since
I bought Undertow a few years ago and was really looking forward to see
them.  We arrived at the "Grosse Freiheit" (which is right on the famous
"Reeperbahn" BTW) at about 8 p.m., a friend and I got ourselves a T-shirt
for 35 DM (which is a bit expensive I think) and started searching for a
good place to watch the concert, which we finally found in the upper half
of the room. We could see really well from where we sat and looked down
upon the sweating crowd :-) 

Lodestar started early at 8.45 p.m. and really rocked the 45 minutes they
played. Shortly before 10 p.m. two big videoprojectors started showing the
"aenimated" logo behind the stage together with this really weird sound
that puts you in the right mood for the show. This went on for what seems
like an eternity, but really was just about 5 to 10 minutes. Then the band
came on the stage and started out with "Third Eye", one of my favorites
from the new album and a very stylish way to start the show, I think.
Maynard of course "wore" his blue-body-paint complete with lighting orange
dots and his boxer shorts, while Justin(?) was painted green. During the
show Maynards color "disappeared", because he was sweating so much, which
gave him a cool shine at first, but soon the color went down on him.
Anyway the next song was "Stinkfist" - after that 3 or 4 people (including
me and my friend) did the chickenweasel-thing, but no response at all. The
band continued with some of their other songs (see the setlist), which
were all performed incredibly well - Maynard used *two* microphones and
did a hell of a show with his really weird spastic movements. The sound
quality was outstanding BTW, I think the "Grosse Freiheit" was chosen for
Hamburg's best concert-place in 1996. 

They also did this real long intro right before "Sober", during which all
of the band, excluding Danny were sitting on the stage. Then they played
their "last song... from our first album" (Opiate), which Maynard
introduced with something like, "This song is about a friend of mine who
thought he has won in a lottery and when he found out he didn't, he blamed
God!". After that the band stayed on the stage chatting while the crowd
demanded "Zugabe" (extra song). Maynard was shaking his ass at the
audience in rhythm with the applaude and finally the band went back to
their instruments, Maynard said, "If you say so..." and they finished
their set with "Aenima", although Maynard announced it as "a song called:
cat scratchin' fever", anyway my favorite song of the band. Overall the
band played for 105 minutes, which was really long I thought, as most
shows I've been to, the band said "Goodbye"  after an hour or so. 

In conclusion I must say, this was the best concert I've seen so far in my  
life and really hope the band will come to Germany more often.

Here is the setlist (the order maybe wrong in the middle part, but all
songs were played): 

 1. Third Eye
 2. Stinkfist
 3. 46 & 2
 4. Undertow
 5. Eulogy
 6. H.
 7. Crawl Away
 8. PuShit
 9. Sober (long intro)
10. Opiate
11. Aenima