10,000 fans

I saw Tool (one of my favourite bands Mum) the other night at Wembley Arena with Turtle, Big Mal and my new Spanish friend Raquel. It’s the 3rd time I’ve seen them now making them the international band I’ve seen the most. I only saw them in June at the Hammersmith Apollo, but Wembley Arena is larger so they were able to put on a better show visually with more screens on stage and cool green lasers fanning out over the crowd. Speaking of the crowd; British crowds suck! They take their place near the front, but won’t get into it and stand around like zombies instead of jumpin’ and moshing. And to make things worse when I want to move closer to try to find the few people who share my passion, the zombies hold their position and don’t let me through. We did eventually find a position we were happy with though, and rocked out from there.

The highlight for me was when they played “The Pot” off their new album 10,000 Days, which they didn’t play last time. Aenima and Vicarious were also crowd pleasers. As you can see from the set list there weren’t many songs, but they were long so it turned out to be nearly 2hrs in total. As usual they didn’t come back for an encore. They always like to maintain the control in the band/crowd relationship. It’s funny the way they always seem to stop a song near the end to get the crowd clapping and cheering, but then continue on again, making us feel stupid. Sometimes it’s actually pretty hard to groove to their rhythms too due to drummer Danny Carey’s use of odd time signatures. Despite all this, I loved it as usual. I find rock concerts one way of accessing a primitive energy that seeks its outlet simply by jumping, yelling, pushing…mmmm I love adrenaline. I can totally be lost in the moment and forget the past and the future. It’s one path to true enlightenment…

SET LIST

Stinkfist

Swamp Song

Jambi

Schism

Lost Keys

Rosetta Stoned

The Pot

Wings For Marie

10,000 Days

Lateralus

Vicarious

Ænima