bike tire, The Mix degree, TOOL concert review
My primitive patch (glue-gun and masking tape…stop laughing B, Aaron, dad…everybody!) job didn’t do the trick for my bike tire problem (see previous post below). So, we went to wal-mart last night (sunday) and I bought a new tube and a new tire. The tube said it was 26 inches (which is what I needed) but it looked far bigger than the tire. I put it all on and inflated it anyway, I noticed then that there was a bulge in one part. On one part I hadn’t properly placed the tire over the tube (with the tube all the way inside). When I tried (in vain) for an hour to fix the problem I accidentally punctured the tube. So, I gave up and took it to the bike repair shop after work (and after we ate dinner at Mark Pi’s). The tire and tube at walmart cost me almost 14 bucks, the “repair” fee and the tube was less than ten bucks at the shop. So, we’ll see if I make it on time for my accounting quiz tomorrow.
Mr. Montes let me know today that he will be graduating with a degree in behavioral science next christmas…B will be graduating in the spring and was making me feel like a lazy loser till I heard from tbyte.. Speaking of Byron, for those of you not in the know, Byron is going to be working for the Air Force after graduation and hopes to be stationed in the Intelligence Department (department? sector?) in Italy.
Speaking of T-byte, I’ve been asked to provide a detailed description of the TOOL concert I attended in august. I was going to reply, but then I figured there were other people (you know who you are) who wanted to see TOOL on that tour but didn’t get to. So, for you unfortunate lads, here goes:
We (Aaron Glover accompanied my on this endeavor) arrived in Cleveland only a few minutes before traffic hit a dead stop on the road leading into the heart of the city. We found a parking spot for five bucks a few blocks from the complex. Neither of us had attended an event at the field or the arena and it was interesting to notice that one could see down into jacobs field from the entrance to the Gund. I had brought two apples to eat as having skipped dinner I was sure to be hungry later. Upon entering I was stripped of my apples, I guess they thought I’d want to eat a $5 cup of beer instead (?).
As usual the opening band despite having talented members, sucked profusely. Mike Patton babbled unintelligible syllables and screamed like a little girl over and over before Tomahawk finally left the stage. I’m getting tired of TOOL letting every single one of their friends open for them EXCEPT THE MELVINS (yes I know the melvins did open for them occasionally last year). Danny joined them on-stage for a song, but it didn’t improve the garbage that came from the rest of them.
After waiting the standard 30-45 minutes after the opening band, the lights went down. Two large projection screens showed the “circle of eyes” image from the Lateralus cd. They were shot from two projectors and that would go out of sync every few seconds to convey the illusion of motion. A strange sound started somewhere far off and kept growing. It was that throaty monk-like growl we’ve heard before at TOOL shows. After maybe five minutes of this, TOOL took the stage and ran smack into the extended (opening) version of Sober. That would be the only song from the first two albums they would play the whole night. The setlist was virtually identical to last years tour, except for the omission of Opiate and the inclusion of the extended “Danny Carey Show” version of Triad.
Maynards box was now outfitted with a spinner so we could see his crooked dancing from all sides. The video was virtually the same as last year with a few changes, but everything still had the same art footage/computer animation vibe. Getting to see a high resolution version of the video for Parabola was nice though. Also, during Parabola two giant recreations of the grape(?) clusters that pestered Tricky in the video floated behind the stage. During the whole show behind the stage were different GIANT tapestries that looked different in different lights. At one point six different tapestries were unfurled hanging from the lighting apparatus above. Each of them depicted a different stage of Alex Gray’s “anatomy” picture. Also fixed to the lighting were glowing wires that were made to look like lighting, and they would zap on and off in correlation with the zaps and zings in -Ions.
During the whole show a speaker was apparently blown, but the sound techs did the best they could and had it sounding decent by the time my favorite live song Reflection was played. Adam had problems with his guitar or amp during the first few songs and could be seen getting very irate with the sound guy to the left of the stage (we were sitting close enough to see the bands faces). Maynard stripped down to his bikini as usual. Adam just kind of swayed back and forth. Justin was jumping around and flailing his hair, and Danny, well…Danny deserves a week off after every single show…
The thing I really wish you two (you know who you are) could have seen was the extended version of Triad. It was basically just one big amazing drum solo…unbelievable…But, you guys shouldn’t feel too bad because all and all, I’d say the show we went to last time around was a little better.
I could write a lot more, but I have an accounting quiz at 8:30 tomorrow that I haven’t studied for yet…
