A Perfect Circle – Rock City, Nottingham UK 8th February 2004

Well now where to begin… How about with “That was one of the best gigs I’ve been to. It was worth the pain in my feet for the guest band alone”!!!!!!

Rock City is not the biggest venue there is, but a few hours ago a sell out crowd of 2,000 – 2,500 jammed in there to see one band and one band alone – A Perfect Circle *woo hoo*

Now I know I go on about Tool and A Perfect Circle a lot, so I will try not to gush too much. I have been to an A Perfect Circle gig before when they were touring with their first album Mer De Noms. I was impressed, but tonight I was blown away. The whole show was amazing.

The guest band tonight was Auf der Maur, and they were fantastic. They are a five piece band with Melissa Auf Der Maur heading the front as lead vocalist and bassist. Melissa Auf der Maur was formally of the Blackhearts. She now rocks the stage with some of the most amazing music I’ve heard. I have to say I will be most definitely going out to buy their album when it comes out next month on the strength of what I heard tonight.

If you’d like to hear a sample, click on this link: http://www.aufdermaur.com/ and go check out the videos page.

For the opening song the Vanishing Maynard was on his usual platform (he has height issues like me) behind a screen and used a really simple but neat lighting trick to show him appearing at different levels and parts of this screen, he even played the drums for this one, when the song had finished the screen dropped to reveal a fully clothed Maynard which is unusual – and disappointing. There was a good selection of both the albums including the following tracks:-

From the Mer De Noms album

  • The Hollow
  • Magdalena
  • Rose
  • Judith
  • 3 Libras
  • Bren’a
  • Thinking of you

From The 13th Step album

  • The Package
  • Weak and Powerless
  • The Noose
  • Blue
  • Vanishing
  • The Outsider
  • The Nurse Who Loved Me
  • Gravity
  • Pet

They also did a few songs that I can safely say won’t be released, James Ihas’ Fred’s Pants, Untitled by Jordie White and Maynard’s Blow me I’m not a Juke Box and Rock City (After the venue).

On the whole I could see the band were enjoying themselves, which after the recent line up changes was a relief – even the enigmatic Maynard cracked more than a few jokes and made fun of James Iha for most of the night. It was a stunning night, the bands were great the music was better, what more can I say.

Even a track on the current album The 13th Step – track 9 The Nurse who Loved Me which I have to say I wasn’t keen on was brilliant, it escapes me why they didn’t record it like the way they played it tonight on their album, because it was a whole lot better.

I really have to say that as a music lover and a A Perfect Circle fan tonight was fantastic – you should of been there. It rocked!!