1994.04.17 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA @ The Edge or 1994.02.07 - It Is a Mystery

Source: Unknown Analog Recording / Unconfirmed Date / Unconfirmed Venue

Notes - Galen 2001: All info for this show is unconfirmed & unsubstantiated. However, it is very clear that this show is not from the above date. But, this performance has been labeled as such for a long time & almost all traders and other individuals have this labeled as such. No one, at this time, is sure of where this came from nor is sure of source info. So, please take note. Hicks died later than Feb. 94. Unless Maynard is psychic, this is evidence that the date is wrong. The audio for this show has been found on the Tools Power commercial silver-disc bootleg. unfortunately, no other source information other than that has surfaced. The sound is surprisingly good although  there is a fair amount of crowd banter. This is one of those shows that has been MP3'd to high heaven, that should be noted when understanding this source so watch it. The recording I have now is TAO but is not from MP3. I have not seen any DAO versions floating around though...

Notes - Neognosis: And the date history-plot thickens as of 09.16.04, thanks to Neogenosis.... Could this show/recording actually be 04.15.94 Atlanta? Don't know if you were aware of this, but Failure recently released a dvd with a documentary on the bands' history.  There is one point in the documentary where they are in Europe on tour with Tool, and a collage of images is accompanied with a list of tour dates scrolling up the screen. It's a little blurry and out of focus, and no years are given, but I spotted two dates at the Masquerade in Atlanta. The first date simply says "Monday the 7th," no month given, but it's followed by the Ritz in Raleigh on "Tuesday the 8th," so it must be 02.07.94. The second date, I'll have to double check this, but I wrote down "Sat. Feb. 15," and it's followed by "Tampa, FL" on the 16th, and I couldn't make out the name of the venue.  That part was hard to read, and it's entirely possible I fucked something up right there. You have 04.16.94 Tampa, FL, USA @ The Ritz Theatre listed on your site, so maybe that Masquerade date is 04.15.94? A friend is going to try and capture some screen images from that segment, maybe that will help clarify things, and provide some evidence you could post on the site ;) Of course, this assumes that Failure and Tool were together for all/most of these dates, but I believe they toured together through most of '94 did they not?

Notes: by - Ryan A: Heavy, heavy, Heavy. Another excellent quality Undertow gig, and another one to pop in the car and enjoy. Very similar in sound to 4.17.94 ('Sober '94'), and my guess is that the same taper did both (see below for more on that). Tool are sounding very sharp here. Having fun with the crowd as usual, - poking fun at the neanderthals. The rest of the band is well-represented, however Maynard's voice gets buried on many of this songs. This is typical of some of the Undertow shows. Adam and Danny get cranked, MJ gets shoved in the background. But he's present enough in the mix, and you'll love it for the quality and performance. Also, I do have a clean DAO copy of this show. Below is an analysis I wrote of this whole mystery date/city/venue mess. Enjoy.

The Epic Debate: 1994-??-?? (aka 02/07/94 Atlanta) and 1994-04-17 Ft. Lauderdale

This is an analysis of the Tool audio recordings: 1994-??-?? mystery recording (aka 1994-02-07 Atlanta, aka “Tool’s Power” bootleg) and 1994-04-17 Ft. Lauderdale @ The Edge (aka "Sober '94" bootleg). The dates and locations of these two shows are debatable. Solidifying the correct dates and places for these shows should be easy enough to figure out, but isn’t. So, what is the correct date and place for 1994-??-?? mystery recording? And is the show labeled as 1994-04-17 Ft. Lauderdale correct and a different recording than 1994-??-??  I started out researching this thinking I’d easily come to answers to these questions. But I ended up going down a number of paths with contradictory, but interesting evidence. I’m not sure I can answer either question definitively, but the following info will help the debate. The evidence will be discussed first, then I’ll give my conclusions/theories at the end.

First, are these two shows actually separate recordings, or is 1994-04-17 Ft. Lauderdale simply an incomplete version of 1994-??-??  A comparison of the two recordings indicates that the Ft. Lauderdale show is indeed a different & distinct recording. The recording quality/sound of the two recordings is different, the setlists and run times are different, and most important - the between song banter from Maynard and Paul are different. See below for the setlist and transcription of Maynard & Paul’s quotes. Not much else to say about that.

Re: The Concert Reports
There was an old 1990s Tool fan site I found years ago (http://nuclei.com/tool/) that I recently remembered and thought it might help in this debate. It went dead several years ago, but stick the URL in the Wayback Machine - an archive of websites alive & dead for the past 11 years - and most of it is revived. It’s a simple site, but click on the Concert Reports link. There are great reviews of some Tool shows from 1993-1994. Some real gems. The reviews are taken from the “tool-list” – an email discussion list that I’ve belonged to since 1996, and has been in existence since 1994. They’re all worth a read, but there are two reviews pertinent to this discussion:- “TOOL at The Edge, Jacksonville, FL by Trevor Conn.”
- “TOOL in Baltimore! By Greg Thompson.”

Re: The 1994-04-17 Ft. Lauderdale Recording
The review written by Trevor Conn states that he “saw Tool for the first time in Jacksonville, FL on April 17, 1994 at a club called The Edge.” Collectiveunconscious.org and distortiononline both list the Jacksonville show as taking place on April 13th and Ft. Lauderdale on the 17th (coincidently at the same venue name “The Edge”). So, either the reviewer is wrong about the date or our current knowledge base is wrong. The reviewer’s email addy (@scri.fsu.edu) is from a department/institute in Florida State University in Tallahassee. Of the four Florida cities Tool played in April, Jacksonville is by far nearest to Tallahassee. So he most likely did go to the show in Jacksonville; the uncertainty is the date. Trevor the reviewer goes on to state 1) the set was short and 2) the concert was a near riot and fans were jumping off the 8 ft high railings that bordered the sides of the sunken pit floor. This description is consistent with the shorter setlist of the 1994-04-17 recording, as well as Paul’s banter to the crowd on that recording: "Come on you chickenshits. Jump, I dare you. Do it. Come on do it. You afraid?" So this review might correspond with the 1994-04-17 recording. But again, either the date the reviewer gives for Jacksonville (17th) or the date in our knowledge base (13th) is wrong. Looking at a map of the cities Tool played in Florida, the listing in our knowledge base (Jacksonville 13th, Orlando 14th, Tampa 16th and Ft. Lauderdale 17th) makes sense as the itinerary descends down from the top of Florida (Jacksonville) in a line to the bottom (Ft. Lauderdale). However, it would also make sense to start at the bottom of Florida (Ft. Lauderdale) on the 13th, and work their way up through Orlando and Tampa to the top (Jacksonville) on the 17th.

Conclusion: 
Contradictory evidence indicates that the Jacksonville date is either the 13th or the 17th, and the recording seems to correspond with Trevor’s review of Jacksonville. However, we can’t be sure so nothing can be definitively concluded. We should be open to the idea that the recording may be from either the 13th or the 17th in Ft. Lauderdale or Jacksonville.
(Sidenote: Three out of the four venues in Florida that Tool played were all named “The Edge” which confuses this whole issue. The Edge in Jacksonville was renamed to Plush, The Edge in Ft. Lauderdale was renamed Revolution and I think The Edge in Orlando turned into 8 Seconds and is now known as The Edge Concert Pavillion).

Re: 1994-??-?? Mystery recording (aka 02/07/94 Atlanta) – “Tool’s Power” bootleg
As Galen detailed in his notes above, the DAT audio source for the 1994-??-?? mystery recording (ie. “Tool’s Power” bootleg) has been incorrectly labeled as 1994-02-07 Atlanta @ The Masquerade for many years. The recently uncovered 1994-02-07 Atlanta @ Masquerade video (whose date & venue is confirmed correct) proves this as the video is a different show than the mystery audio recording. So we know the audio recording is not 1994-02-07 Atlanta. And we also know that it must have taken place during the 2nd leg of the 1994 US tour (April – May) because Maynard references Bill Hicks’ death, which took place in February 1994. Now refer to Greg Thompson’s review of “Tool in Baltimore.” The email of the review is dated Tuesday April 12, 1994 and his opening sentence states “Well I saw ‘em last night in Baltimore.” He goes on to say that “Tool played everything except Bottom …” So both of these statements disprove the theory that the mystery date is April 11th in Atlanta. A) Because they played in Baltimore on the 11th. And B) Because they played Bottom on the mystery recording, and not in Baltimore. I should note that I do trust Greg Thompson’s statements because he was the original creator of the tool-list email discussion group (which then spawned Kabir’s toolshed site), and was one of the first onliners to be very knowledgeable about the band.

Conclusions

I have three theories about the date and place of 1994-??-?? mystery recording, the first being the most likely scenario.

1) The 1994-??-?? mystery recording is of one of the four April 1994 Florida shows, most likely either April 14th in Orlando or (even more likely) April 16th in Tampa @ The Ritz. The two recordings in discussion here (1994-04-17 and 1994-??-?? “mystery recording”) sound very similar in sound quality. They both sound like rich DAT recordings, which are rare for the Undertow tour. So it’s likely these two shows were recorded by the same taper with the same equipment. And it makes sense that he would hit two shows occurring close together in the same state. Also, the venue name that has always been attached to this recording is The Maquerade, which everyone assumes is the venue in Atlanta that they played just two months prior on February 7, 1994. As you’ll read here and here, the Ritz in Tampa was originally a movie theatre. But in the 1980s, it was redesigned into a concert venue / night club called The Masquerade where a lot of alternative, punk and metal bands played. So, The Ritz actually is The Masquerade, and this venue name which has been attached to the recording all these years might indeed be correct all along - just in a different city. 

2) The 1994-??-?? mystery recording is 1994-04-19 New Orleans at the State Palace Theater. Three bits of information lead me to this theory:
A) Paul references a voodoo curse in an introduction to a song, "This next song is dedicated to Gorby's voodoo curse." Voodoo legend is common to New Orleans.
B) This trader lists a DAT recording for 1994-04-19 New Orleans in his collection. The last update of his site was May 9th 1999, well over 7 years ago. This was before there was any kind of website giving a complete, accurate & condensed listing of Tool tour dates (like Galen’s & distortiononline), which gives a little more validity to the trader’s listing. I doubt he just came up with that date and city out of his ass.
C) at 4:36 into song 11 on the mystery recording, a crowd member exclaims, "Man for fucking Ministry, like the first 5 rows didn't have seats left." 2nd fan: "Dude, you saw Ministry over here?" This site contains a complete listing of all Ministry tours with dates and places. Ministry did not tour in '93 and '94, but they  did tour the southern U.S. in December of 1992. And on December 12th, they played The State Palace Theater in New Orleans, which is the only venue in common with Tool’s April-May ’94 tour. And from this set of pictures of the State Palace Theater, it looks like there are indeed seats on the floor (to be ripped up) for music concerts.

Side Note: The Failure Documentary

As Neognosis first pointed out, the band Failure released a dvd documentary (“Golden”) where a scrolling list of tour dates appears in the middle of the dvd. Failure opened for Tool throughout their February – May 1994 tour so this initially looked promising in helping to clear up the April 1994 dates. But unfortunately it is a bust. I rented the Failure documentary dvd and captured some stills of the scrolling tour dates. Here is a photo album of them. It is confusing because there are no years listed, but it’s clear that it starts off listing from Feb. 2, 1994 – Feb. 27 1994 (opening for Tool). But then it skips right over the March, April and May dates and goes into August dates. It then picks back up in July of 1996, into 1997 and finishes with the summer ‘97 Lollapalooza tour we are familiar with. So, sadly we don’t get any clarification on the April 1994 tour dates from this dvd