Melt Banana and Tool

Went to see the heavy metal band Tool last night. And I fell asleep, even through all the noise.

I'm not a fan, but Husband is. I enjoy music and concerts and thought that even if I'm not really a fan, I could still enjoy it. After all, we went to see Disturbed, again, I'm not a fan, but at least their stage show was interesting. But Tool? Nope.

What I didn't enjoy:
1. The 4 band members were pretty static. They stayed in one place and didn't move around. The drummer of course, stays behind the set. The lead singer stood on the platform next to the drummer, in the shadows. The guitarist and bassist stood out front, in the spot light, but didn't really move. Actually, one (bassist or guitarist, couldn't tell) sat down and both of them had their backs to the audience, and faced the drummer instead. What kind of show is that? Were were supposed to watch the videos on the 4 screens behind them instead? Boring.
2. Air, a la Grateful Dead. The Dead will have these long, long jams that don't seem to have any rhyme or reason. If you're stoned, they're great to "dance" to. But if you're not, then it's excruciating. It seemed that most of the Tool show was them doing heavy metal electronica jams, standing in one place. I hate those jams. Boring.
3. The roadies wore knee-length white lab coats, so you could see them moving around. Usually, roadies wear black to be inconspicuous. And then the roadies mostly wore shorts, so there were bare legs below the lab coats. What the hell was that?
4. Didn't recognize any of the songs they played, despite the fact that we listened to Tool on the way to the venue, and I've heard their stuff on the radio. At the end, Husband mentioned that they didn't play their big song "The Pot."

The times I did open my eyes, I could see 6 or 8 people at a time walking out. We sat at the top row, right next to the stairs, so people walking past me could see that I was asleep. I so did nto fit in, wearing work appropriate pencil skirt and twinset in red and cream, and not the black goth/heavy metal wear that most other fans had on.

What I did enjoy was the opening band, Melt Banana, a 4-piece band from Japan. The lead singer and bassist were women, the guitarist and drummer men. We didn't understand anything they said, other than "Thank you," "We're so glad to be opening for Tool," and "We're Tool fans too" when the audience started chanting for Tool. At the end, some people in the audience actually booed Melt Banana. How rude. For crying out loud, I didn't enjoy Tool, but I didn't boo them.

Husband said he enjoyed about 50% of Melt Banana, and mostly did not enjoy the wall of sound stuff they did. Little did we know, that's what the Tool show would be like.

When we arrived at the concert venue, there was a guy on loud speaker saying that we couldn't bring any bags in, no cameras, had to empty our pockets, and get into different lines, by gender, for the pat down. Well, I had not prepared for this. I was going to just bring in my purse, like I do for other concernts. I scrounged around my purse for something small to put my ID, money, ticket, and most importantly, lipstick and eyedrops. I ended up using my camera bag to hold those things. Clearly, I could not bring in my knitting, -- spikes and studs were not allowed, I'm going to guess knitting needles, even bamboo, would not be allowed. Which is too bad, because then I could have done some knitting, not napping. However, I'm sure Husband would prefer me napping instead of knitting.

So, it's a first! A heavy metal concert put me to sleep.