From: carl.ternstedt@kungalv.se (Carl Ternstedt)


Wednesday Feb. 19

Metropol, Berlin.

On tuesday evening we drove our car onto the ferry which would take us
from Gothenburg, Sweden to Kiel, Germany. FFrom Kiel we would drive about
4 hours to get to Berlin. For every mile we laid behind us the excitment
rose just a little bit more. This was going to be the first time for all
five of us in the car to see TOOL live. 

We got the tickets and looked up a place where we could sleep for the
night.  The time was getting there, it was time to enter Metropol and one
of the coolest nights of our lives (so far). 

When we got in Loadstar had started to play. They sounded pretty good
since I've never heard them before. We got ourselves a TOOL t-shirt and
checked out the end of Loadstar. 

The roadies cleared the stage from Loadstars things and the show was about
get started. 

The lights went out and there was a sound which really got you into the
right feeling, it was mysterious and it really "smelled" TOOL. The big
screens at the back of the stage was showing the front from the Aenima CD. 

Finally TOOL entered the stage!  Maynard all painted in blue with orange
dots in patterns on his body, just wearing his TOOL boxers.  Adam just
looking like satans bellboy.  Justin, which according to Maynard, came
from Cleveland, Ohio this evening, had formed his hair into two horns
looking like the devil. He had also painted his body in blue.  Danny
was.....well, Danny, but what a Danny! He had his huge set and he really
used it well! 

They started out with Third Eye, kinda strange I thought but it was really
cool.  Then Stinkfist was on the menu, they played it a little bit
different from the album.  There were a few people yelling "chickenweasel"
after but there was no response at all.  Inbetween the songs there was a
kind of an embarrasing silance, the crowd didn't say much and neither did
the band.  As you can see on the setlist TOOL probably was into some food
thing this evening since they named nearly all songs with brie, cheese,
bread and milch. What it was beats the hell outta me!  In the begining of
Euology there is this keyboard kinda sound, Maynard was doing this with
some thing which disorted his voice, he used this two or three times
during the show.  Maynard was singing from two different microphones
almost during the whole set and it really sounded great.  Prison sex
turned out in another song, I don't remeber what it was, either it was
Undertow or Pushit, it could have been another song.

Before Sober which is (what I think) one of the best songs they have ever
done they did a jam session kinda thing, they were really out there doing
it. During this Adam, Maynard and Justin was sitting down on the stage,
you could see Maynard mumbling the same word over and over again for him
self. What it was I don't know. During a verse in Sober when Maynard was
singing he shook his head from the left to the rigth really quickly, it
looked like he was in some spasm or something, the cool thing is that he
sang at the same time and it sounded like normal, it really amazed me! 

Some other thing that I'll remeber was how the painting from Maynard was
lightning when there was a special light pointed at him, his eyes and
mouth was all green and that was a real cool effect! 

During the whole show Maynard moved him self in all kind of position you 
can be with your body, it reallt remided me of the TOOL videos. 

Maynard also said between a song that they've decided not to talk so much 
but let the music speak for it self, I agree in a way, maybe they 
realized from the begining that the crowd was hopeless. 

Before Opiate Maynard started said: "Now we're going to play the last
song..."  and the crowd went oooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........then
Maynard completed the sentence with "...from our first album". Maynard!!
You kidder!!  After Opiate the band gathered togher at Justin's place at
the stage,they stood there chatting and laughed. At this time you could
see how tall Danny was or how short Maynard was. If you were lucky Maynard
reached up to Danny's shoulder. 

Maynard returned to the microphone after a while and said: "Oooh so you
still here, it was so quite we thought you've left". Well the Berlin crowd
is non to fuck with!!! 

They ended up with Aenema which is a killer song. 

The show was a show beyond all other shows, there wasn't so much 
connection between the band and the crwod but between the crowd and the 
music. Since this was the first time we saw them we wanted so much. We 
was given a little
but it will last for a long time. All I hope for this summer is that TOOL 
maybe visit Roskilde or some other festival, probably that's the only way 
to check 'em out real soon here in Europe. 

The last we say from TOOL was Maynard walking out giving us a peace sign. 


See you on the road!

[ See also Setlist Image, typed out by MJK as always]