A Perfect Circle, live in Berkeley, California

A Perfect Circle has once again returned to the Bay Area, and this time I was fortunate that they played a bigger venue, which meant that tickets were much easier to come by (as opposed to last year's mini tour). But, in keeping with tradition: the opening band was "interesting" (at best). They called themselves "Red Bacteria Vacuum", and they hail from Tokyo, Japan. They are a trio of women, playing very loud J-Rock. I tweeted a short clip if you're curious — they weren't entirely bad, but I don't think they'll be conquering the US anytime soon.

And in yet another tradition, the venue was trying to discourage people from taking pictures. However, being the scofflaw that I am, I took a few:

As with every other A Perfect Circle show that I've been to, the band was really tight, and everything sounded great. This setlist looks to be about right, except that they also played "Gravity" off of Thirteen Step (instead of "The Package", I think). Highlights for me included the aforementioned "Gravity", "When the Levee Breaks", and "Orestes". That song, in particular, was amazing. They really played the hell out of it, went into an amazing extended bridge, and then killed it at the end.

Some other notes:

• Maynard worked in a lyric about Happy Meals during one song.

• During what normally would have been intermission, Maynard said that the had a setlist, but rather than schedule time to go "leave the stage and play grab-ass", they were just going to stay out and continue playing.

• Maynard had just one question for us: "Really, what's with the Happy Meals? Seriously? That's all"

• When introducing the band members, Maynard said: "Currently under investigation for illegal downloading - Mr. James Iha"

• They played for almost exactly 90 minutes.

• Towards the end of "Passive", Maynard started working in lyrics about how much he liked pretzels, and at one point sang that he'd like a pretzel. I believe that someone (possibly James?) gave him a pretzel, and he ate it before finishing the song.

All in all, I was surprised that they played so many songs from eMOTIVe, which is clearly their weakest album. This was reinforced by the fact that I heard several people remark that they were playing a "new song", when it was actually a song from eMOTIVe. However, the did finally end with one new song, which is apparently titled "By and Down". You can listen to it here on YouTube, and while I don't always like every song that A Perfect Circle puts out, this new song does sound pretty good, which makes me hopeful for a future album from this band.

-Andy.