Bob was the one that was able to secure tickets for the show two nights prior to this and when he did was also able to get two tickets for the Sunday show. His wife expressed interest in possibly going so in the name of spreading joy to the world I agreed to forgo my ticket for her if she chose to go but in the end she passed. Unbeknownst to me he had not even told her that he bought tickets for the Sunday show so he did not know if he was going to make it until the last minute. By the time we figured it all out we were walking in just as “Fear Inoculum” was starting and had to kick someone out of our seats. We did have slightly better seats for this show but they could not be classified as premium seats by any stretch of the imagination so it was funny to walk in on someone trying to snake our seats.
Since it was a Sunday we decided not to drink at all for this show (don’t fret dear reader I still had a couple gummies) so I was able to notice a few more details than I recalled from the Friday show. The first thing I noticed is that people get really cranky about standing in their seat space instead of sitting down in their seat. For some reason people think you cannot hear them when they are talking right behind you but then again maybe they were talking louder than normal to make sure they were being heard. Bottom line this is not your fucking living room so if you don’t want to stand then maybe you should pony up extra dough to sit somewhere else or shut up and deal with it.
The next thing I noticed is that Maynard seems to be coming out of his shell a little more lately. Two nights ago he had come down from his platform but tonight Maynard hung out on the drum riser for a moment then was later seen on top of a speaker cabinet being pushed across the front of the stage and finally briskly walking from one side of the front of the stage to the other at the very end as he was saying farewell. I was also attuned enough to notice that he embellished some of his vocal lines throughout the night.
Tonight I noticed the exact moment that the “fishing wire curtains” peeled back was during “Parabola” to reveal a naked band – not naked in the sense that they were not wearing clothes but just more exposed. This was met with a roar of approval from the crowd. Those same “fishing wire curtains” closed them back in for an INTERMISSION of about 12 minutes with a projected countdown timer and all right after “Forty Six & 2 (this happened at the Friday show as well but I had forgotten).
The only difference in the setlist from two nights prior was the inclusion of “The Pot” and “Part of Me.” At this point anything from Opiate seems otherworldly since it is a short blast of pure rock fury vs. a crazy extended musical journey. People were not as cool on this night with keeping their phones out of their hands but despite this Maynard once again proclaimed that it was ok to openly carry during “Stinkfist,” which turned into an extended jam near the end right when you thought they were mere seconds from being done. This to me was a good summation of Tool: right when you think they are about to disappear they remind the world that they were never really gone. They also remind the world that we need them more than ever.
SETLIST: Fear Inoculum, AEnema, The Pot, Parabol, Parabola, Pneuma, Schism, Jambi, Vicarious, Part of Me, Forty Six & 2, Chocolate Chip Trip, Invincible, Stinkfist
