We'll see if Tool can pull a Martina

Maynard and his crew might be in town as you read this. (For those not familiar, this is a reference to prog-metal four-piece Tool, playing the Show Me Center Saturday night). Can you feel the excitement?

To tell you the truth, it's not really excitement that I'm feeling, but an anxious kind of unease, a feeling of waiting for the ball to drop. Well, maybe there's some excitement to see Melt Banana, too.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see Tool for my third time, but I'm always about checking out bands I've never seen before.

So if you're reading this, you can probably tell there's no interview with a member of Tool here. But hey, these guys rarely give interviews, anyway, as far as I know. They're secretive, and they like to cultivate that image of more-than-meets-the-eye mysticism. That's cool with me. I'd sometimes rather keep the mystery than actually talk to the artists and find they don't live up to my expectations.

And here's another disappointment -- I won't be able to give you, my loyal reader, any kind of prediction on whether the Tool show will actually reach that magical sell-out level we're hoping for. Apparently the Show Me Center got into a little hot water with a concert promoter after giving me advance numbers on ticket sales, so there's a new hush-hush policy in place. Can't blame the Show Me Center for that.

Even without those numbers, we still have enough evidence that we rock 'n' roll fans might, strangely enough, be able to take some hope from the experience of Martina McBride and Little Big Town.

You may have noticed the lack of coverage of the concert in the pages of our newspaper. My apologies to the country fans out there who wanted to see a picture of her in the paper (who wouldn't?) -- I was out of town on vacation and lines of communication were crossed, so the people left behind forgot about the concert.

But I received some pleasantly surprising news about the show when I returned this week -- news that I hope may translate to greater success for Tool than I'd first hoped.

A little over a week before McBride took the stage at the Show Me Center, only 3,100 tickets had been sold. But in that last week almost 2,000 more where sold, and McBride ended up selling 5,041 seats.

Sure, you may say, "But she's country, and country always does well in Cape."

That's not always the case (remember Sara Evans and the GAC Country Christmas Tour), but most of the time it is. But if country fans can make that kind of run on tickets, why can't Tool fans?

One reason may be the price of tickets. I've talked to my share of people who aren't going to the concert because they think $54 is too much to spend on a concert. I can see where they're coming from, but keep in mind that Tool is one of the world's biggest touring acts right now.

As a general rule, you can bet Tool fans don't have as much disposable income as McBride fans. Tool fans identify with the underground, the rebellious rock subculture. They're not middle-class family people with good-paying factory jobs or business positions, like many of the area's country fans probably are.

If price is an issue, a Tool fan really can't get a better deal anywhere within a few hours drive. Go to StubHub and you'll see what I'm talking about -- between $75 and $350 for tickets to the St. Louis show a few days after our local date. Now that's real, heavy cash.

Here's a tip: If you go on eBay you can find tickets for the Cape Girardeau show, and as of Tuesday night they were going cheaper than the face value.

When we look at this analysis honestly, though, there's really no way to know for sure just what factors are influencing sales of Tool tickets, or what factors might influence those sales between now and Saturday night, when the first big rock act in years takes the Show Me Center stage. Any number of things could come into play here, from college students being out of town to St. Louis fans who weren't able to get tickets for their local show.

Regardless, if you are going, here are a few things to remember: This is a big rock show so you will be searched on your way into the venue, the Show Me Center is hosting another of its patio parties before the show, and you can't take photos at all.

Hopefully I'll see you there. Maybe you'll be the person that pushes ticket sales over that magic sell-out threshold. If you do, maybe Queens of the Stone Age will be next.

A guy can dream, can't he?

Oh, by the way -- as you read this Tool can't be in town, because they're playing Bonnaroo tonight.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182