From: Scream (scaundl@tpgi.com.au) Subject: TOOL Australian Tour:Newcastle Review Well i have just seen a international band play one of the smallest venues you could ever imagine.I think it has been a long time since TOOL has played such a small gig.The venue??Newcastle Uni-Bar On The Hill.That is all it was,was a BAR.They had built a stage.One is not there all the time.And all it was,was a room.With a bar and a can bar.That is it.Way to small for a band like TOOL to play.But alas play there and PLAY they did. The support band was YUNG.They are doing these 2 smaller shows.Newcastle and Canberra.Shihad play the bigger gig Sydney.Well they were allright very very TOOL sounding which was rather off putting.The singer was trying to dance like Maynard.Not a good idea.Anyway they played for 30mins and were worth a mention i suppose. The lights go out and the rumbling begins.The only way to describe the start.I am at the front of the barricade just to the left of Maynard.And only 1 metre away.LIKE REAL CLOSE!.It is only a small venue remember almost a club gig.The band walk on.Maynard painted green with blue lines along his arm and across his chest,Black skin tight pants with fluro yellow strips.Adam in grey pants and a white shirt,Justin in blue pants,shirtless and painted blue with his horns again.I only noticed tonight he has his nose pierced too.Danny in a shirt with shorts.Shirt last the first song.The walk in to position Maynard just standing and staring into the crowd wondering by the look on his face what the hell.Adam turns around to find only 2 amps not 3 and looks rather pissed.Danny starts "THIRD EYE" and the crowd goes off.There is only enough room for security to stand in front of the barricade so crowd surfers are pushed back into the crowd and not over the front.This is the first time i have heard "THIRD EYE" live and it is awesome.Maynardnot moving just standing and singing.Next was "STINKFIST".Moshing and crowd surfing gets worse.Adam spends the whole song looking into the crowd.Extra bit in the middle the just stop.They guy behind me keep singing and Maynard looked straight at him and shook his head.That was funny.It is here the band stopped and Maynard and Adam walked over to the stage tech had a word with him then a guy came in the front and told security to pull the crowd surfers over and between the stage and the barricade.There was no room for this.TOOL lauch into 46&2.Within the first seconds someone comes over the front and gets knocked out.He was the first and last guy to come over,they just kept throwing them back from then on.While this happened a girl got on stage danced around abit then was dragged off.The crowd not into it as much as i thought but the crush was bad.Next was "PRISON SEX",Maynard saying this is our song about Anal sex.No added lyrics or parts.Adam is getting really shitting he is missing a amp.Maynard annouces Justin as the new bass player from MAINLAND.Justing looks at Danny and goes "WHERE?"Danny just smiles and strugs and the band start into Eulogy,Played normal and till the stop in the middle and Maynard stands in the middle of the stage looks straight into the crowd and goes"We have T-shirts,Caps,Posters,Stickers and various other stuff for sale in the foyer"It was so funny hearing that i cracked up.Next was "HOOKER WITH A PENIS"Maynard introducing this as"Here is a song about BUTT FUCKING"What a song live.Maynard throwing himself into it the band too.Adam seemed a little happier.Justin broke a string and change basses in like 20 seconds and kept going.The crowd went off here most knowing the words and screaming them a Maynard.Here there is a little conference between Adam and Maynard,which ends with Adam shaking his head and the band playing "SOBER".The set list said "PUSHIT" then sober but there was no Pushit.A short sober too.Same as the album.Maynard goes on "This is our last song"Crowd boo's off our first album.As it turns out "OPIATE" was there last song.As they finish it Justin sits down on the stage and lays his bass down.Adam gets some water and storms off.Then with the crowd screaming TOOL they have a chat.All the band.Someone just screams TOOL.And Maynard grabs the mike and goes."TOOL is next,Thank you for coming to our reunion gig,*pause* We are Van Halen",Danny laughs."You know when it rains in America it rains outside,i never knew that in Australia it rains inside too".It seems there was a leak in the roof and it had got into something on Justin's pedals.He couldnt play.Adam still pissed shook his head and pointed to his rig.Maynard quotes some Judas Priest lyrics i am not sure what they were and the show ends.No ÆNEMA.That was it. See Ya A brusied and batter but still alive,
From: skeeter (c9607592@alinga.newcastle.edu.au) Well, they absolutely rocked (no surprises there). maynard was painted green, justin was blue. the place was packed tight, with no room to move. in my opinion it was a stupid venue to host an act like tool, it was WAY too small. anyways, they played these songs: 1. third eye 2. stinkfist 3. 46 and 2 4. prison sex 5. eulogy 6. hooker with a penis 7. sober 8. opiate i think that's the order, but the beer was starting to kick in, so i couldn't be sure. when they got to prison sex, maynard introduced it by saying "like all of our songs, this is a song about anal sex". then at hooker w/ a penis he said "here's another song about anal sex", and in the middle of that song he told us all to buy his t-shirts. before sober maynard told us that they were on their reunion tour, and that they were actually van halen. the guy next to me was like "yeah, van halen rock!" so i punched him. they only played for about an hour, and couldn't play an encore because some fuckwits were throwing water on stage and the roof was leaking, which shorted out justin's bass rig. oh yeah, there was one support band, jung, who kinda sucked. (well, compared to tool anyway).
From: Matthew Wellings (m.wellings@unsw.edu.au) TOOL at The Bar On The Hill, Newcastle University, NSW Australia Tuesday, April 8th, 1997 -review by Rowan McSwan The Bar On The Hill is a small on-campus bar at Newcastle Uni. (about 180 km north of Sydney). Some awesome bands, such as Alice In Chains & Suicidal Tendencies have played there in the last few years, but never has the place been so wholeheartedly rocked as on this Tuesday night just past. A local act, Yung, kicked the evening off. A bad Tool tribute show is probably the best way to describe their set and no-one was sorry to see them go. The capacity of the venue, reasonably speaking, is probably about 300 people, but somehow, the student union, in their infinite (financially-motivated) wisdom sold about 600-700 tickets, so the joint was well and truly fucking packed. Still, 600-700 is still a pretty small crowd, considering the venues that Tool play. The band finally hit the stage and launched into Third Eye in all its fucked-up glory. Maynard was wearing trousers, with his torso painted green. Justin was completely blue. Neither Danny or Adam were painted. Stinkfist followed Third Eye, and, predictably, was much more popular with the punters. The order of the songs is a little fuzzy in my mind so I'll list them in an approximate order: Third-Eye Stinkfist Forty-six & 2 Hooker w/ a Penis Crawl Away Prison Sex Sober Eulogy Undertow Opiate There were a couple more that I can't remember (shame). They played for almost two hours and had Aenima still to play when the condensation on the roo of the venue began to drip, shorting out Justin's bass rig. MJK commented on his failure to take into account that it rains inside in Australia. Some of Maynard's comments (well, approximations anyway): "As with all our songs, this one is about anal sex." (Stinkfist) "This is another song about anal-sex, but a more specific kind....buttfucking" (Hooker w/ a Penis......during the song MJK took the opportunity presented by an extended instrumental section to tell us that they had stickers, t-shirts and all other types of cool accessories for sale....very well said) "This is our new bass-player, Justin Chancellor, he's from Maitland" (Maitland is a small town near Newcastle - I think a few people actually believed him). And heaps more shit that I can't remember. Overall, a night that had all the power and intensity that you can expect from Tool's music. Very few bands can kick as much ass as these guys.
From: Peter McCourt (Mccout@synflux.com.au) Getting in was a hastle, I got there as did other people about an hour before the doors were supposed to open (7:15 according to the ticket) and then at about 8:00 or so we get told that the door were were waiting at were not going to open and we had to go the a different entrance and wait in the rain to get in. Anyway once i got in at about 8:30 i think. I got close to the front and waited and the support act who I think were called Yung (pronounced Yoong-not young as far as i know) came on and played for about 45 minutes and were actually very good for a support band with good hard music and i would consider purchasing one of their CD's if they have any out. Tool entered about 30 minutes or so later with Maynard Green (i think-hard to tell with the coloured lights) and also had these lines and a dot on his forehead which you could see with different coloured lights and looked rather cool. Justin was all Blue/purple while Adam had a shirt on and Danny did too till he took it off. The Set-list from memory was as follows: 1.Third Eye 2.Stinkfist 3.46 & 2 4.prison sex 5.Eulogy 6.hooker with a penis 7.sober ( no intro thing) 8.Opiate but.... a nice security guy gave me a copy of the setlist which read as follow: 1.TURD EYE 2.STINKFIST 3.46 & 2 4.(B) PRISON SEX (B) - REFERRING TO TUNING OF THE GUITARS ??? 5.EULOGY 6.PUSHIT 7.SOBER 8.OPIATE 9.AENIMA why we got hooker with a penis and not pushit i don't know. But at the end of the show after opiate the band had this discussion thing and then danny sat down ready to play another song and maynard sort of looked ready to continue but then they decided to walk off without playing Aenema. Overall the show was good but not as good as Canberra the following night and I left feeling a bit disappointed, the sound seemed a little off and Maynard's vocals not sounding as good as in Canberra, but maybe I expected too much. Maynard didn't say too much but some of it included this is Justin our new bass player he's from ????(don't know where it was). Said before Prison sex that this song like most of our songs is about anal sex. Said before Opiate this song is our last song....off our first record but did turn out to be the last song. During the discussion at the end Maynard was saying stuff like Were Van Halen or something and other stuff but I couldn't hear well.
From: matt coffey (little.raven@effect.net.au) tool, newcastle, 8th april 1997 well, what fool organised this show. i wonder if someone suggested, "let's get tool to play in a fucking barn, it will be great, trust me", ha fucking ha. i'm sorry, but whoever put tool in this venue... well, shall we say, to be kind, was having a bad day. i don't think tool or their management "larrikin" realised what this venue (if you could call it that would be like) and because of the venue, the sound suffered, and i mean suffered. you could here more sound from the stage rather than the pa, ( they used the same p.a. in canberra the next night to great effect, read my review on the canberra gig site). i'm really sorry to whine about this, but when you have been a hardcore for nearly five years, drive 7 hours in the rain to see them and arrive to this place, it is a tad disapointing. anyway, on with the review.as the pa pumped out the sounds of "-(ions)", tool arrived on stage. slowly easing their way into "third eye", as this is one of my favorite songs off "Ænima", i was really pissed off when the guy standing next to me asked me what this song was, because it wasn't on any of the tool disc's he owns (enjoy your sober single buddy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). i was amazed to hear this live, it caressed my soul with it's structure. incredible! "stinkfist" reared it's ugly head and proceeded to get the "radio heads"* moving in the crowd. "forty six and two" followed and this song justs demands attention. everything from the melody line to the exceptional talent of danny carey. his 32nd note tom roll towards the end of the song has to be seen to be believed. truly insperational. after a few technical fuck-ups, "prison sex" arrived. maynard singing so well tonight, his delivery was brilliant."eulogy" started with maynard and his "gadget", slowly building the song to one of it's many climaxes. adam's guitar was especially "crunchy" during this song, but it didn't top " hooker with a penis". i had been led to believe that tool didn't really play this live, so to my amazement, i stood there dumfounded, as the music entered me. maynard delighted the crowd by saying that this was their come-back reunion show under the guise of van halen. he also gave quoted some judas priest lyrics for us, what will be next "saxon"?,"tank"?, or maybe some "tygers of pang tang"?. very cool indeed! the familiar tones of "sober" saw the ears of the "radio heads"* prick up with excitement.the crowd went off in a big way. but alas the time had come. maynard announed the last song "opiate" and the bass harmonics announcec the beginning of an exteremly tight version, but unfortunatley justin's bass gave out and it really was their last song. (they were due to play "Ænema" but with no bass, just a bit difficult) anyway, after all the hassle of the venue being shit, the pa not coping and the idiots in the crowd shouting for "stinkfist" after it had already been played, i enjoyed it so much. tool have inspired me in so many ways, it is so hard to express myself properly how i feel about. i just want to thank them for being them. the opinions expressed in this review are mine. *i not having a go at anyone at the gig by refering to them as "radioheads" but tool does have more than three songs. go out, buy the disc's and enjoy, as your life changes for the better.