June 29, 2010
I’ve been to hundreds of concerts in my day, everything from Yanni to David Bowie and I have never seen anything like Tool.
They performed at Redrocks Amphitheater in Morrison, CO last night. They’re doing another show there tonight.
To see Tool at Redrocks was a spectacular treat because the venue itself is outdoors, with the lights of Denver in the background, twinkling like millions of stars above the stage—yes above the stage. Then there were millions of real twinkling stars above that—as the full moon rose like a giant orange disc, while lightning flashed from the stage and from the sky off to the south as if it were part of the show. Tool’s lasers then zapped like thin green and red electric fingers over the crowd, bouncing off the rocks behind us.
I thought I was wearing those funky 3-D glasses and didn’t know it.
Tool’s music is heavy, dark and mind-provoking. It’s full of wonderful, holographic, hard-rocking angst and honest, gritty lyrics. I love music like this—music that makes me uncomfortable enough to question who I am.
The show opened with “Third Eye” and the song stepped out flashing, intense and macabre. It was a fitting entrance, as if to say, “Open up your mind,” since in many spiritual traditions, the third eye is believed to be the window to the soul.
I was first struck by the fact that none of the musicians upstaged the others. The bass player, Justin Chancellor, and guitar player, Adam Jones were out front, on opposite sides. Drummer Danny Carey was on a riser between and behind them, and the lead singer, Maynard James Keenan, to the left of the drummer. He never had a spotlight on him and you never really saw him unless he was outlined against the big screen behind him.
I’m not used to this. I’m used to seeing the lead singer stealing the show—basking in the limelight. Not in Tool. This alone made me uncomfortable, made me respect them because instead of focusing on how the singer looked, I was forced to watch the video behind the band—mechanical humanoids, huge eyes popping out in unexpected places, alien-looking beings floating and spinning, and colors pulsing, dripping and throbbing at me while I felt the pounding tension of the music. It was like an acid trip without the drugs.
Most of the audience was stoned—or tripping. I don’t know how anyone could watch a show like this while tripping. I think it would literally blow your mind so bad that you’d end up permanently insane. Besides, you didn’t need drugs to trip out on this show. I’ve also been to several concerts recently where I seem to have been lucky enough to have some dude behind me throwing up. Tool was no exception. I was glad I wore my shoes instead of the flip-flops I had originally planned on wearing.
Then there was another guy pissing into a plastic water bottle next to the guy who puked all over himself. And on the way out of the parking lot, there were more people stumbling, screaming and falling off the road than I’ve ever seen. As we drove out of the venue, a guy alongside our car said to his friend, “Dude, I’m tripping bad.” His friend replied, “Let it happen, man.”
Tool would be proud.
As far as the music, besides “Parabola,” “Schism” and “Vicarious,” another of my favorites was “Forty-Six & 2.” I loved the music and the video and I loved the lyrics—about confronting your shadows. Isn’t that one of the hardest things in life?
Maynard rarely spoke to the audience, except for a brief moment after about the first three songs, when he said, “I have a public service announcement—marijuana is illegal.”
The audience raised their smoldering joints and screamed back, “F–k you!”
I have no doubt that this band is hindered only by the parameters of modern technology—a live show must be presented in a certain way in order for it to be most effective—but if they could figure out a way to move beyond those parameters, they would. And I’m sure they will one of these days.
The concert—and I hesitate to use this word; it seems too cliché for Tool—ended with “Aenima,” and pretty much all I can say is, “Wow.” It’s about facing the stupid crap we think is important in life.
Tool was unquestioningly the weirdest concert I’ve ever been to—even topping David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust in the ‘70s. But Bowie’s show was strictly entertainment; Tool was an experience in and out of my mind like a beating heart, or how my body feels after running or after sex—when it’s heaving and sweating.
I am wounded.
The biggest test of whether a concert experience has been meaningful, is whether or not one would fork over one’s hard-earned dollars to see the band again.
In this case, all I can say is, “Oh—hell yeah!” Wish I was going tonight too.