From: Derek Sweet 
Subject: Vancover, Oct 25 - PNE Forum

On Thursday Oct 24, me and a friend, both avid tool fans for at least the 
past 3 years, jump into a car at 6:00 AM and embark on a 12 hour drive to 
Vancover B.C. to see the best band in existence.. TOOL 

As we walk through the door to the PNE Forum an usher taking tickets 
tells my friend to butt out his smoke because it is a non-smoking 
building.. he laughs and butts out his smoke, walks 20-30 feet into the 
crowd and lights up another, simply joining in with the 1000 other people 
smoking in there.. by the time the opening band has left the stage (the 
cows) you can barely see the roof because the smoke is so thick.. joints 
and cigarettes are being fired up left and right in anticipation of 
TOOL.. 

Quickly on the cows, they sounded like a good band but the mixing was so 
bad, or maybe just the sound of the instruments, that you couldn't hear 
what they were doing, just sounded like noise and screaming.. the crowd 
responds by hucking things at them, including cigarette butts, which the 
singer of the band picks one of up, smokes it for a while, then eats it.. 
crazy shit.. 

A giant projection screen in the back of the stage looks like it is just 
turned on, and the crowd begins to scream.. the house lights go off and 
on the screen is a huge moving picture of what comes on the front of the 
CD when you buy it (the big white square with graphics) and a loud bass 
begins to rumble.. each member walks out one at a time, Adam wearing 
pants and no shirt, thin as a motherfucker, I mean.. you could see his 
entire rib cage.. Justin looking not particularily special, Danny is 
fucking HUGE.. and Maynard comes in wearing nothing but his underwear and 
some wierd make-up all over his body that makes him look black.. like 
negro.. so much so that a friend of mine that has never seen him before 
said to me at the end of the gig: "You mean he's not black??" 

Adam gives a tiny wave, and the shit begins.. 

They open with stinkfist, and Maynard goes fucking NUTS!!! like I mean 
flying all over the stage, moving his body every which way and bringing 
the lyrics to 'h' to life.. the man is a fucking snake.. 

They continue thru out the gig and play a bunch of songs.. I honestly 
can't remember the order, your asking too much from someone in my state 
of mind... they played every song from aenema except for 'h', as well as 
'prison sex', 'sober', and 'opiate'.. opiate was kind of slowed down, 
fitting the style of undertow and aenima more then that of opiate.. in 
the middle of prison sex they do something wierd and implement lyrics 
that sounded like 'jimmy'.. but once again.. I was trippin way to hard to 
remember.. 

The cool things is.. they retained their style EXACTLY!! all those cool 
sounds you hear on the record are reproduced acoustically by Maynard 
using two microphones and getting wierd sounds out of them.. all the 
while there is graphical displays on the screen in the background, that 
will be explained later.. 

Inbetween song banter consisted of a few things.. after the 4th song 
maynard says "Oh, and you guys win the award for being the rudest fucking 
audience to an opening band we've ever seen, we happen to like the cows, 
that's why we brought them".. before 'Hooker with a penis' he says: "This 
is a song about all those t-shirts and hats for sale out there".. another 
time early on in the concert he says "Lets try something.. Just.. say.. 
yes... (Crowd screems 'yes').. Just say yes..(crowd screems 'yes' 
again).." I took this as "just say yes to drugs" played on the "Just say 
no to drugs".. but some took it as him testing his power over the crowd.. 
who knows.. 

On the giant screen mentioned before, every song has something 
different.. like in eulogy there were pictures of evolution and shit, 
like an ape turning into a man and then back into an ape.. and during 
sober and prison sex the videos were played.. during pushit there was 
pictures of animals having sex, one disturbing picture of camels having 
sex and the female camel screaming really loud, camera focusing on her 
face as she screams.. to top it all of they finish with maynard saying 
"This is our last song, (crowd gets upset) but if your familiar with how 
we write songs that could be like an hour right? (crowd cheers) but it 
probably wont be".. then they break into third eye.. on the screen now is 
extremely disturbing images of a guy wrapping cord around his face and 
pulling it so tight that it begins to bleed and drip all over his neck 
and chest, then a chick does the same thing to her chest.. 

Maynard starts to wave goodbye saying "bye bye" and everyone yells.. they 
begin to walk off the stage, then maynard goes "bye bye.. ok.. we'll 
stay".. then they bust into Aenema.. which kicked ass... 

All in all.. the concert was amazing.. if there is a gig near you go and 
fucking check it out