A Perfect Circle was formed by guitarist Billy Howerdel, who had worked as a guitar tech for bands such as Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, Fishbone, Guns N' Roses and Tool. During the recording of Tool's Ænima album, he played demos of his music to Tool's singer, Maynard James Keenan, and the rest is A Perfect Circle history. The band has been a really huge success, clearly not a simple side project for Maynard. One of our friends, Mr. Ao, is a die-hard APC fan so when it was announced they were coming to town, we sure wanted to help him meet them and away we went.

       Of course we are fans as well and the night before the concert we estimated how long it would take for them to get to town. When we arrived to the venue we were nearly dead on with our estimation, which was great because we didn't have to waste unnecessary time waiting for their bus to arrive.

       We had only been there for about 5-10 minutes when we saw a really nice tour bus drive by the venue, we figured it had to be them. We knew exactly where it was heading: a fancy hotel down the road so we ran all the way there to beat it. It was one of the best-looking tour buses we have ever seen; it seems that they like to travel in style. The anticipation was growing and we wondered who would step off of the bus first.

       Troy Van Leeuwen was the first to step off and started walking in our direction. He was talking on his cell phone but Mr. Ao tried to ask for an autograph in the most respectful way that he could, given the situation. Troy had no problem stopping to sign and pose for pictures with us. He even got off the phone in order to give us his full attention, which was very nice of him. We thanked him for stopping to sign and he was off. At least we knew that we wouldn't be heading home empty handed on this day.

       Next came Paz Lenchantin and she also didn't mind stopping to sign for us. The one thing she wasn't willing to do, however, was take a picture with us because she just woke up. She wasn't all prettied up in her opinion and didn't want to look like crap in a photograph. She still looked really good from just waking up in our opinion, but we were thankful that she signed.

       Soon after, we spotted Josh Freese on his way to the elevator and he seemed to be in a rush. Mr. Ao managed to ask for an autograph before the elevator doors closed and he agreed to sign as well. As Josh was signing we held the elevator for him and were happy he stopped. After signing he got into the elevator and thanked us for holding it for him and we thanked him for signing.

       There was no sign of the Tool/APC lead singer, Maynard James Keenan, unfortunately. It looked like everyone was off of the tour bus and so it took off down the street to park at the venue. We just headed deeper into the lobby and hoped that we would spot either Maynard or Billy coming in.

       After some time passed Earl spotted two bald guys go to the elevator, but we were at too great of a distance to see their faces. We remembered that Maynard is actually bald and wears wigs at the APC shows, so the two bald men were probably Maynard and Billy! If it was indeed them, that really sucked. All of us had important plans for that night, so we had no other choice but to go home.