Few bands inspire the kind of devotion and derision that Tool manages to attract in equal measure.
More than 30 years since their debut EP Opiate dropped in 1992 (an era the band have been revisiting to varying extents in recent live shows), Tool occupy a strange position in rock music.
They are simultaneously one of the most commercially successful heavy bands of their generation and one of the most polarising. Their fans treat them with near-religious reverence, dissecting lyrics for hidden meanings and analysing time signatures like ancient texts. Their detractors dismiss them as pretentious, overblown and far too pleased with themselves.
Tool have never seemed particularly bothered by either camp. The Los Angeles four-piece built their reputation on complex, sprawling compositions that regularly stretch past the 10-minute mark, esoteric artwork from visionary artist Alex Grey, and a frontman in Maynard James Keenan who famously performs in shadow at the back of the stage (their Adelaide show was no exception…at all). They take their time between albums, releasing just five studio records across three decades. The gap between 10,000 Days and Fear Inoculum stretched to 13 years.
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The technical complexity of Tool’s music has become the stuff of legend among musicians and the band’s live shows have become equally renowned for their production values.
Safe to say, their Adelaide shows lived up to this reputation.
Take Pneuma, for instance, which arrived half-way through the set. That track features 42 video cues, 70 lighting cues and 20 laser cues across its 12-minute runtime, with at least half a dozen of their songs containing more than 50 video cues each. The catch is that Tool do not play to a click track, meaning the entire visual production has to be triggered manually in real time by the audio-visual team. Lasers are synchronised to drum beats and manipulated based on the feel and timing of the music rather than automated sequences.
Their Adelaide Entertainment Centre setlist on 28 November offered a case study in the band’s approach to live performance. There was no Schism. No Sober. No Ænema. Instead, Tool dusted off deep cuts that had not been performed in over two decades, including Disposition and H. from their back catalogue, alongside a cover of Black Sabbath’s Hand of Doom carried over from their appearance at Ozzy Osbourne’s farewell show earlier this year.
The 14-song set drew heavily from Fear Inoculum, 10,000 Days and Lateralus while largely ignoring the radio hits that first brought them to mainstream attention. For most bands, this would be commercial suicide. For Tool, it barely registered as a complaint.
The criticism has followed them throughout their career. The word pretentious gets thrown around constantly, aimed at both the band and their fanbase. Keenan himself once called Tool fans insufferable, a comment that most devotees took as a badge of honour rather than an insult. Considering there was a ban on phones and nearly everyone obliged, this degree of reverence is hardly a bad thing.
Whether their next chapter arrives in two years or another decade, Tool will remain exactly what they have always been: a band that does things entirely on their own terms, regardless of what anyone else thinks about it. We, for one, have well and truly drunk the Kool-Aid.
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