From: Joe Vocke
Wow. What a difference 4 days makes. First, read my review from Cleveland - then read this one.

Something was wrong tonite. Of course, Toledo kind of sucked foremost - the show was not sold out.. it was on a Tuesday, and I think that had a hand in the somewhat dead crowd. But something was wrong on stage tonite.

The show was still great. The production was as good... and my floor seats allowed me to see much more of the lighting effects than I saw in the upper bowl of Gund. Believe it or not, there was MORE PYRO tonite than there was in Cleveland.. Stage show, setlist, lights, pyro... all of that - 5 stars. Paul added some new raps (from last Friday even)... he talked about the first places they played in Toledo, and talked about some different things. This was very cool! And how about the obnoxious amount of confetti?? Has any special effect ever looked SO COOL!? It's like it's snowing indoors!! Awesome!

But something was funny with the guys tonite. They really looked tired - maybe Cleveland took it "out of them"?? It was the weirdest thing. Ace started playing the solo on "Deuce" after only the first verse... Gene came up to sing the 2nd verse like, "Should I sing it?"... then when it came time to actually play the solo, Ace couldn't play it - all you heard was muted strings. After this, for like the next 4 to 5 songs, it was like the band was having difficulty staying in sync with each other. For "Shock Me", Ace said, "Who cares about the introduction... let's just play the song... let's go Peter." At one point a couple songs later, Paul had to look at Ace and Peter and get everyone back on the same measure... I mean I haven't seen this sort of thing since the show at Tiger Stadium. And for the first time ever, Paul's voice actually sounded tired. Never have I heard his voice sound tired... perhaps he is coming down with something?

However, I really think alot of this was a function of: The awesome shows in Cleveland taking their toll, the weekday (Tuesday night concerts... yuck), and the fairly dead crowd. There was a point when you could tell that Paul was doing everything in his power to try and get this crowd fired up.... Gene probably did the best - the blood spitting portion brought people to their knees.

And, to further break my heart.... Paul did the "sound meter" thing to see if he should come out for Love Gun. For the second time last night - the crowd got LOUD AS HELL. It took about 4 seconds to peak the meter (At Cleveland, it took a while). So, my seats are 2 rows back from Paul's mini-stage. He is going to fly DIRECTLY over my head. Finally! My last chance to see one of them UP CLOSE is going to happen! He gets on his rig... and it sits there... he waits.... and it sits there. He gets off and goes to the microphone... as soon as he gets there, the rig goes up... so Paul comes back, gets in the rig... and it sits there... he looks back like, "What the fuck?"... and it sits there. Finally, he gives up and says: "I'm trying, but I can't"... LOVE GUN still ROCKED... but I was so bummed that the machine failed last night! ARGH!

Even with all the strange goings on tonite - I am glad I got to go. The show is much more enjoyable from the floor. Everything was better.. I think we just caught them on an off night. Maybe I will find one more chance to see them before they're gone for good... :-(

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