Tool fans are so cultishly attached that they actually (mostly) obeyed. Never mind the mind-bending visuals tickling the third eye. Or the rare two-hour set list featuring songs most never would have seen live from several studio albums. (A clear lesson learned from March’s Tool in the Sand debacle, where fans flirted with issuing the band a class-action lawsuit for giving them a repetitive setlist at a festival in the Dominican Republic.) One must respect Keenan.
Tool served Auckland with a special set list. Photo / Getty Images
The frontman and vocalist of the three-time Grammy-winning group performed entirely in shadow at the back of the stage. Not once did the lights beam on him. Instead, the staging effects heroed his comrades and maestros behind the complex soundscape: drummer Danny Carey, bassist Justin Chancellor and guitarist Adam Jones. It worked well. The band wanted you to worship the musicianship and the fans were fixated on doing so.
Especially that one guy in the crowd holding out his arms as if to carry the hefty planet shown on the video wall, absorbing its power. Very Dragon Ball Z.
“Some of these songs we haven’t played since you were sperm,” said Keenan after asking the under-25s to raise their hands. Straight afterwards, the band performed Crawl Away from its first studio album, Undertow (1993), for the first time since the 90s. H. from Ænima (1996) also returned from the dead. Tool hadn’t performed it for a crowd in 22 years.
And so began the longest wait after the audience call for an encore I’ve experienced after Intolerance.
This is how the Mexican waves started. It started for the same reason it always starts. Out of fans’ idleness. They grew tired of cheering, clapping and stamping their feet. Some started booing. Are we being trolled? Or is the show really over? There was no weed in the air at this point.
After 15 minutes of waiting, a five-minute countdown appeared on the screen at 10.05pm. When it hit 00.00, Carey emerged in an anatomical-chakra bodysuit and slowly melted into Fear Inoculum album art. We said hello to Chocolate Chip Trip.
Whoever booed surely forgave quickly for phones were allowed again. And the most breathtaking psychedelic theatrics of fire, eyeballs and humanoids were on.
The band surprised with encore track No 2: a cover of Black Sabbath’s Hand of Doom. Tool last played it at the late rock legend’s tribute in Birmingham, UK, in July. “Rest in peace, Ozzy,” said Keenan at the song’s end.
The closing was Invincible. Epic and hypnotic.
Toolheads knew they were lucky. This setlist was as rare as a diamond. Aucklanders got to have that diamond on the first night.
Will they get it again on the second night?
In the words of Keenan: “See you tomorrow, b*****s!”
Tool performs its second and final New Zealand show at Spark Arena in Auckland tonight, before continuing their tour to Australia, Japan and Hawaii.
Varsha Anjali is a journalist in the lifestyle team at the Herald. Based in Auckland, she covers pop culture, travel and more.