|
Pulse of the Twin Cities Login |
|
If you do not have an account yet
Create One.
|
|
|
Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
|
|
|
|
Tool at Xcel Energy Center 09.04.02
Wednesday 11 September @ 09:49:17 |
 by Nicolas Buron
September 4th: a day thousands of Minnesotans had circled on their calendars, not as a birthday or a holiday, but for a concert. Personally, my calendar says “Tool!!!” on the 4th, in big red letters that spill over to the 5th.
For millions of people around the world, Tool is more than just four guys with instruments: Tool is a vibe, an emotion, a thought, a state of mind. Tool is the hair that sticks up on the back of your neck, the chills you receive when you are moved. Tool is the blood that curdles when you are compelled: and Tool is also the band that packed the Xcel Energy Center on that red-letter day, September 4th.
The energy in the room was so thick you could smell it, equal parts expectation and the thrill of the unknown. In the long interval between when Mike Patton’s band Tomahawk ended and when Tool was to begin, I looked around the arena and saw an ocean of people giddy with anticipation.
As the lights went down and the room disappeared into darkness, a temporary calm fell over the arena. Two large rear-projection screens on either side of the stage throbbed in and out of focus with the image of a spiral made of beleaguered eyes—the cover image of Tool’s fourth full-length album, Lateralis. While the lights danced behind the screens, a droning cacophony rose from the stage. The sound slowly evolved, creating tension. A frenzy of people began shifting about on the floor level of the stadium. After several minutes, the sound built to its peak in the opening thuds of “Sober,” the song that helped make Tool a sensation, and also one of the most misunderstood of rock bands.
During “Sober,” elegant red curtains reminiscent of a vaudeville show house hung from the ceiling, as though cloaking something. All through the song, bright red lights cut through the billowy smoke being pumped out into the air. The lights strobed in time with Danny Carey’s kick drum. Near the climax of the song, the crowd exploded into a fury that had been brewing for a year. Collectively the crowd looked like maggots eating a wound clean.
After “Sober” wound down, the large red curtains disappeared from sight, revealing a complex occult-style illustration. The backdrop showed several faces that where intertwined through shared colors and shapes: the faces looked like what you would expect to see inside an ancient temple. When different sources of light hit the backdrop, different faces appeared, leaving the crowd to wonder what the real illusion was.
Halfway through the set the stage was abandoned. Dark blue crept from floor to ceiling in the sold out stadium. All that was audible was an ambient fury coming from the guitar of Adam Jones. The sound resonated for a long time, lingering, until the crowd was so hungry for a song that, when Adam struck just one chord, the entire place burst into cheering.
Tool doesn’t perform like any other act you would see at Xcel. Maynerd Keenan (the front man of the band) doesn’t run around doing the splits (David Lee Roth you know who you are); Danny Carey (the drummer) doesn’t do drum solos spinning upside down on an hydraulic stage; Adam Jones doesn’t have a Flying V guitar; and you won’t see bassist Justin Chancellor covered in makeup with devil horns shaved into his head. (Well, probably not.) And while there’s nothing really wrong with bands like that, it’s refreshing to see one that doesn’t feel the need to mine the history of rock shtick.
For the most part, Maynerd kept his back to us, and we loved him for it.
The show had a lot of high points. Danny’s one-of-a-kind drumming makes me think he’s playing a kit made of melted down cymbals and occult sacraments. Maynerd sings while thrashing around on stage like he was in the final stages of an Anthrax infection. The band even pulled out a 20 minute instrumental jam that included a few members of the opening act Tomahawk; in that one, you could actually hear the strings of Adam Jones guitar shiver.
However Tool’s performance also had a lot of low points, almost too many for me to consider it a good show. My expectations may have been too high, but I still think there was reason to be disappointed. One of the main things that bothered me about the production was the images projected on the screens. They were almost all recycled from the year before, and looked like they were made on a Sony Playstation. The pictures themselves were so inappropriate that I found it hard to focus on the band: I was too busy wondering why a neon yellow snake, that looked like it was ripped from a coloring book, was trying to swallow its tail.
More troubling though was Tool’s performance. I felt like there was hardly anything to get into. The band seemed to be playing exactly what was on the CDs. It didn’t feel like they were giving it their all; it was kind of devoid of emotion. The majority of the songs in the set list were from Lateralis, which felt kind of unbalanced to me. They did play a song from Opiate, their first album—a very rare occurrence.
Tool also did what was quite possibly the worst thing they could have done at a live performance: At the end of the show, they pointed all stage spotlights at the stage. The band then came to the front of the stage and waved, Evita-style, to the audience. The worst part was to see Danny Carey dressed head-to-toe in a Lakers jersey. That moment crushed a lot of the mystery that made the band exciting.
|
|
 |
|
|
Comments -
Post Comment |
|
The comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for its content.
NO comments yet! Be the first!
|
|
|
