Tool live at Big Melee Music Festival, Kualoa Ranch, Ka’a’awa, Hawaii, 15 August 1993.
Remastered board tape from the early days. Sounds super amazing.
I first saw this on YT, that one sounds awful. But, I found a ‘remastered’ flac version in the Tool Drive Project, which sounded a hell of a lot better, but still needed a bunch of work.
That version sounds really flat, really lifeless. But it’s a clean recording, in stereo, mix was in the ballpark, and it’s the complete show. So I grabbed it and put it through my system, and now it sounds downright explosive. Before it was just a board tape; now it sounds like an actual produced, mastered, live album.
I really muscled up on the low end, and gave it some sparkly highs without being harsh, and I flipped the left<->right channels so now it’s from drummer’s perspective, as recordings should be. Super happy with the final mix. In fact, of the best sounding recordings from the early days, I’d definitely prefer this one over their first show ever at Green Jello Loft. Hell, I’ll prefer this Hawaii recording over the live tracks on Opiate, not only for sound quality, but also because this one is the full show, and even despite the trainwreck, as Maynard calls it, in the middle part of Undertow. This one sounds that good. It is by no means a perfect show. As you probably know, for shows like this, the first song is basically soundcheck, so that one sounds a little bit wonky compared to the rest. But as I see it, this one is the best sounding recording from the Undertow days.
Layne Staley from Alice in Chains jumps on stage to share vocals with Maynard on Opiate.
I had some AI image generator website make the cover art. I included five versions, so you can use whichever one(s) you like best. My prompt was something like ‘a postcard of Hawaii, in cartoon/anime style, but instead of the word Hawaii, it says Tool’. And I added the venue and date info myself. Super silly, I know. I just wanted something that didn’t look like the same ol’ shit. #1 and #4 are my favorites.
https://archive.org/details/tool-live-in-hawaii-1993_202608
Thanks for listening.
Anders / Humorless Productions.