So firstly, I managed to do the same damn shit I did when my partner and I saw Maiden last year - book the highest seats in the house. Fuck me I guess. Luckily once Tool properly began all height fears went away, and I was entranced from that point on.
But we started off the show with an opening act called
Steel Beans. Now, I really had to do a double-take with this one. From the distance I was at, it looked like there were three people on stage, but for some reason the drummer was also playing guitar and singing (and making fucked up jokes). Then I looked closer. There were two people on stage: the multi-instrumentalist and another dude filming him. THIS MAN. PLAYED GUITAR. AND DRUMS. AND SANG. ALL AT THE SAME TIME. And it would be one thing if he was doing simple stuff. NO. He's doing drum fills galore. Intricate guitar solos. And he's not a bad singer either! Really interesting. Can't say the music he played was my thing but shit, that was a basket of talent right there.
Stage change, yadda yadda. Suddenly the lights go out. Then, slowly but surely, you hear Danny Carey begin the intro to
"Fear Inoculum". Now, all that
@Collin had told me was that the setlist had some main staples and a few tracks that changed depending on the night. I went into the show expecting them to have moved away from
Fear Inoculum and instead done more of a history tour. So it's interesting to start off the night with the opening track from their last album. But Jesus Christ, I did not expect them to have such an intricate grip on the way they use their screens. A lot of bands seem kinda lazy with it, but Tool. The screen is part of the experience, the light show is insane, and the band members are just locked into the grooves as they play. Awesome first song.
Maynard addresses the audience in the absolute calmest voice ever. He's not breaking a sweat for this. "Philly," he coos softly. The crowd response with passion. "Man, you guys are sounding like Pittsburgh." Booing. "...Philly
" he coos again. And the whole stadium roars. Then he gives his spiel about "We're gonna go on a little trip tonight" as though he's a trip sitter and frankly, I may have already been high at this point from the second hand smoke. But after telling us to "put your fucking phones away" Adam Jones starts rattling off the intro to Rush's "A Passage to Bangkok" and I'm like, a cover song?
And then the intro to
"Jambi" kicks in and I have ascended to another plateau entirely.
I won't lie, I completely let go of myself at this point. My body was channeling the music. Vibing. Moving. The lights were incredible. "
Shine on forever, shine on, benevolent sun," sang Maynard, and beams of yellow rays illuminated us as we were spellbound by the display. And if that wasn't good enough, they almost immediately launched right into
"Rosetta Stoned" thereafter. The screens beamed photos of aliens and UFOs while Maynard recounted his troubles outside Area 51. Danny was a fucking beast on that drumkit while Adam and Justin were being electrically charged as the rhythms stepped in and out of line with each other. Fuck me. That was amazing.
So at this point I'm thinking to myself, so are they gonna open the show with a
Fear Inoculum track and work backwards, doing two songs from each album before wrapping up again with a final
Fear Inoculum track? Well,
"Pneuma" proved me wrong, and was my first glimpse into realizing that I was seeing a different show than I expected. The song was great, the lights were again amazing. But then they dropped
"Intolerance" and I was once again blown the fuck away. A bath of red glow and industrial images set the background for what was, frankly, far better than the album version, and I
like the album version. But I loved this. "YOU LIE. CHEAT AND STEAL. HOW CAN I TOLERAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE!" Goddamn. So cool.
Also some dude yelled out "'SWEAT'!" right before the song came on and for half a second I thought they were playing that before my brain accurately put together what riff it was.
When
"Descending" came on I finally pieced together that this was yet another album tour for
Fear Inoculum. In hindsight, I wish I'd known that upfront because my expectations would've been tampered a bit. "Descending" is one of my favorite songs on the album, but I don't think it translated quite so well live, especially with the extended instrumental. I also think it's a very vivid song, I see all sorts of pictures on a dark, stormy sea when I listen to it, so having a red pyramid on the screen did not fit the vibes that I had in my head. But it was still cool.
"The Grudge"! Once again, I have lost myself. The whole song was amazing. Maynard did the scream, let's fucking go. And then a 12-minute timer counts down our intermission. What are we gonna experience next?
Well, it's Danny's turn in the spotlight as he gives a fantastic performance of
"Chocolate Chip Trip". At this point, two dudes in front of my stand up and block my view for the entire rest of the show. Nice. But they play
"Culling Voices", which worked better live than on the record, and
"Invincible", which was also great. Finally Maynard says we're gonna get one last song and we can film it this time - but only if we turn off the flash. If we use flash, he'll be forced to "come down there and take a shit right in your mouth". Message received. It's
"Forty Six & 2". My partner is hyped as fuck and damn was that a perfect closer. It's my favorite Tool song, too, but after witnessing "Jambi", "Rosetta Stoned", "Intolerance", and "The Grudge", this is more like a cherry on top rather than a highlight.
Amazing way to close out the concert, then the band says their goodbyes. Maynard fist-bumps his bandmates, Justin's kids run up on stage, and finally once the stage is empty, ABBA's "Dancing Queen" begins to play. So cool.
My partner was in the driver's seat so I went on setlist.fm to see what other cities had gotten. Honestly, we got the perfect setlist possible. For
10,000 Days they swapped between "Jambi" and "The Pot". For
Undertow they swapped between "Intolerance" and "Swamp Song". For
Ænima they swapped between "Forty Six & 2" and "Ænema", and occasionally "Stinkfist". For my money, our show got the best possible combination of songs that they played.
Such an awesome experience all-around. Enjoyed the whole experience and I definitely wanna see them again next year.
. But the rest is simply as good as it gets.
