A new years resolution of mine was to “do something that scares you.” I was thinking it’d be eating one of those grasshopper lollipops or telling my dad I have my tongue pierced. To my surprise, on Monday, Jan. 10 I crossed that undertaking off the list at Matthew Knight Arena.
I saw Tool play its first live show since 2020 and while I’m not very religious, I think I’ll need to spend a few Sundays in church as recompense. After their song “Hooker with a Penis” alone, it’s time to get right with God.
I’d like to spend a day inside the mind of a casual consumer of Tool’s music. I could never imagine blasting this music through my earbuds at the office. For those who do, more power to them.
You could throw Tool’s stuff in the progressive metal box, but really, they make music that I have to compare to an onion — lots of layers, one overarching flavor. Even with the percussion of the Indian tabla drums, a stale European-ness that I can only laughably equate to German band Kraftwerk and the surround sound qualities of an old laserdisc, I’d describe their sound as intense.
I had a few preconceived notions going into the night, all of which would be proven wrong in the first five minutes.
Notion A: Tool fans are scary. Wrong.
Tool fans are bald. I haven’t seen so many stark white heads in one place since I visited my grandpa in hospice care. Bald people are awesome, bald Tool fans specifically.
Notion B: I wish I took drugs before this show. Wrong.
Drugs during Tool would have ruined my foreseeable future.
Notion C: I am not a Toolhead. Wrong.
Folks, this concert was in the running for one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
Before they even started I was already impressed. A cylindrical curtain with all this fringe covered the stage and displayed a fiery lady-parts-looking projection. Throughout the whole show, they used a curtain to project some sick stuff to 12,000 people in the arena. A steel monkey with glowing white eyes, drowning bodies floating from the top of the stage to the floor, a goblin getting a lobotomy — the list goes on and on. I wish I could show you, but Tool has a strict no filming policy. You’re just going to have to take my word for it.
They opened with “Fear Inoculum,” the title track of their 2019 album, and I’m not sure what inoculation is, but I sure felt fear. Their frontman, Maynard James Keenan, scared the spit out of me. First of all, he was lurking on these risers, switching from the right to the left of the stage in the dark. When his eerie vocals came through the speakers, I thought it was my first adult taste of true psychosis. Then I saw him in his 5’7” glory. He was dressed in black, naturally, wearing a mohawk and pseudo-KISS makeup, crouching like some sort of primordial soup creature. Absolutely epic.
On the center riser was Danny Carey, Tool’s drummer. What meets the eye with Carey is the polar opposite of what I saw with Keenan. He wore his stature like Lurch from The Addam’s Family and his blonde hair swung as he banged on his eight-piece double bass drum kit. Guitarist Adam Jones and bassist Justin Chancellor split center on the floor holding down the strings to tie together the other two juxtaposing personalities.
The four played off of each other so tightly that they threw the whole crowd into what felt like a collective trance. Even the security guard, who was once so politely guarding my section, was waving her arms and throwing her neck back to the sound.
The only guy in the whole place who wasn’t feeling himself was a few rows behind my photographer and I. Dead asleep. I had half the mind to hold my fingers under his nose to check if he was breathing. This stuff was so loud it could’ve made your ears bleed and he was out. Next Tool show, I want whatever he’s having.
The whole show was 13 songs long with an encore, but it lasted just short of three hours. In those three hours however, the four members of Tool showed me a side of the Los Angeles sound I’d never met before. It was loud, dense, unearthly and hair-raising. My prior notions couldn’t have been more wrong. I won’t pretend I get their music or that it’ll be going on my on-repeat playlist anytime soon, but from now on, I am a certified Toolhead.
