Tool Concert Review

My relationship with hard rock band Tool has been quite an interesting one.

Before listening to Tool the top 40 was really my only avenue to music. As a young naive adolescent I wouldn't really step out of the mainstream before bands such as Linkin Park and the Foo Fighters. Perhaps at this point it would make sense to mention that Savage Garden's 'Affirmation' was my first album.

Anywho after seeing an ad for Tool on TV at the age of 13 I decided to try them out. And I never looked back - the progressive songs, unbelievable musicianship and that crude sense of anarchy Tool evoked definitely appealed to me.

So while I've added plenty of flavours to my palette since then there was definitely an excitement when heading into Tool. I felt like I was revisiting my teen years, and when viewing setlists of other shows in Oz I knew I wouldn't be disappointed.

This was some sort of a show. Coming out with intense visuals and the voice of Bill Hicks blaring "Think for Yourself. Question Authority" (yes, Third Eye intro) I knew this was going to be something special.

They seemed to divide the show into two parts - the first part was all the long epic prog rock pieces that are so synonymous with Tool (Vicarious, Schism, Pushit, etc) but perhaps none better than Lateralus, which was accompanied by visuals straight out of a concentrated LSD trip.

The second part was more the hard rock jams - classic Tool. The final trio of 46 and 2, Aenema and Stinkfist was the ultimate finale.

Maynard's voice was known to be very fragile throughout the tour and had resulted in a show in Adelaide being postponed last month. He hit the notes fine throughout the songs but you could tell he was a bit tentative - he wouldn't hold the notes longer than need be but he was still very tight. And fucking awesome.

It was a different kind of concert - the event staff spoke of the band requesting that no mobile phones /cameras could be used throughout the show, and they followed through in throwing people out who persisted in ignoring this request. Tool wanted the show to be seen with your eyes - not behind your iPhone screen.

So the bottom line: If you get a chance to see Tool - do it. They are unbeatable live and put on an all-round great show.