Sunday, June 18, 2006

Living Vicariously: A Perfect Circle In Portugal


Pitchfork's review of the new Tool record more or less dismisses the album, "rather than delving further into experimentation or exploring their strengths, Tool have made an...A Perfect Circle record." While I'm obviously biased, I'd hardly call this a negative development. The analogy that Tool is the masculine, cerebral, number-cruncher, while APC is the more feminine, emotional, ethereal being is fitting, but both aspects are necessary, in my opinion, for really satisfying music. To write off (no pun intended) the mellower, almost confessional elements of the 10,000 Days is to ignore what is one huge progression, the incorporation of personal experience in already meaningful subject matter.

But with the awakening of Tool comes the subsequent uncertainty involving A Perfect Circle's future. The band is a supergroup of sorts, with a latest incarnation of (left to right) guitarist James Iha (Smashing Pumpkins), drummer Josh Freese (The Vandals), bassist Jeordie White (Marilyn Manson) and the core of singer and lyricist Maynard James Keenan (Tool) and songwriter and guitarist Billy Howerdel (guitar tech for many of previous bands mentioned). The band is sadly on what is perhaps permanent hiatus, but we're happily able to relive the glory days with the miracles of modern technology.

This show was recorded on January 20th, 2004 at Lisbon Coliseum in Portugal, during the tour supporting Thirteenth Step, with what I'd consider to be the peak of APC setlistism (if such a word existed). Enjoy:

1. Intro
2. Vanishing
3. Pet
4. The Hollow
5. Magdalena
6. Band Intro
7. Weak and Powerless
8. Orestes
9. Blue
10. I Want It That Way (Tongue-In-Cheek Backstreet Boys Cover)
11. Rose
12. The Package
13. 3 Libras
14. The Nurse Who Loved Me (Failure Cover)
15. Gravity
16. The Outsider
17. The Noose
18. Judith

Buy APC albums: Here

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