Starjelly08
Sound Rating

Not the worst audio... but definitely far from the best. Good show though. Despite it seeming as though the audience wasn't totally present. Kick is almost non existent at first, then it starts coming through but most just some clicking and the tiniest bit of low end, thankfully. The vocals are surprisingly clear I have to say. Couldn't ask for better there regarding audience recordings. Guitar is fine. Its as good as it can be. The bass is pretty quiet and lifeless. Overall the sound is a little distant and a little unbalanaced. not at all unlistenable if you are a Tool early era Addict. Otherwise it's fairly skippable as there otherwise doesn't seem to be much going on unique to this show that hadn't been captured better. The performance was great, which is also pretty standard for 93 Tool. There are actually a few SLIGHT times you can hear some struggling in Maynards vocal. It seemed the lineage of his voice...this was the beginning another area of change for him. 91 and 92, he had that semi nerdy, nasally tone. Very very strong screams, slightly higher pitch talking voice. It seems once they came back from recording Undertow, his voice got a little more control, but dropped a tiny bit. Probably a combo of age and super duper pushing his vocals to the max on tours and in the studio. Prior to touring and recording with tool, as you can imagine, its unlikely he was screaming his face off every night. Naturally this happens. It happened to me too. In fact, just for a reference point... I have a song in which I recorded a scream, one scream, that changed my voice forever. When I show it to people, they understand. So coming from that perspective...I absolutely understand how his voice changed over time. And its incredibly impressive how slowly and how little it changed for such a long time, given how much and how hard he went. At the very end of 93, and in 94...thats when you can start to hear him have tiny little squeaks, shorten some yells, run out of breath occasionally, change some screams to yells, have to try harder, and not be totally spot on at times. All of that is very nit picky. He was (and still is) an absolutely phenomenal singer. He improved in a lot of ways too. This show as well as a couple other around this time occasionally highlight those subtle changes. If you don't understand and say ignorant things like "maynard doesn't scream anymore and it sucks" or whatever...go ahead and listen to all of these early shows. He gave it his all. There are moments where you can absolutely hear he blew out his voice. If you don't understand why his voice changed naturally, and why he occasionally decides to do a more mellow approach for certain things...these recordings should be able to teach you. It's not his lack of desire to do his best for Tool. It's an absolute necessity to even continue to be at all ABLE to do Tool at all.

hodor
Sound Rating

Fucking hell... I give a 10 score for Starjelly08's context. Thank you, brother. I like this capture a lot from the audience amateur perspective. But your editorial makes all these worth a listen. MJK was getting paid at this point. Maybe not Lloyd's of London on those vocal chords, but he knew at this point the longevity of his vision for Tool was tied to those tonsils.

elgooG
Sound Rating

Aren't you the guy who made the Sega Genesis Development Kit?