Tidal Wave of TOOL

Despite my utter distain for the shocking array of douche bags that I am well aware will unfailingly turn out at each and every TOOL show, when I got the news a few months ago that the band would again be in the Puget Sound area, I found myself setting my alarm to wake up early on a Saturday morning so I could wait my turn in the online ticket outlet queue for a shot at scoring admission. Even as visions of the obnoxiously drunk and tremendously annoying classic TOOL fans flashed before me, I secretly hoped that my karma would be clean enough for me to win the opportunity to once again see one of the greatest bands of my generation. I must’ve done something right in a past life because I ended up with a ticket. But two days before the main event, the universe revealed its cruel sense of humor when it was announced that the Montana show was postponed due to a viral infection that was affecting Maynard’s throat. Would the Seattle area show be cancelled too, or would it go on with a sub par performance from a sickly lead singer?

Virus or no, TOOL, my friends, does not disappoint. Even though Maynard did not attempt the vocal crescendo at the end of Flood, it doesn’t mean they didn’t still hit like a mother fucking tidal wave. TOOL has the unbelievable ability to suck all of the sound out of an arena and hold it inside themselves, leaving the audience to flop on the floor in front of them like fish out of water, until, after agonizing seconds of defiant silence, they unleash it all back full force. Standing in the crowd, you know the sound is going to come at you way too fast to prepare for it, no less escape it—it overcomes you, sweeping you off your feet and forcing its way into your ears and your nose and your throat, filling your lungs and drowning you with its fury. Every time I experience that ferocity of sound, that riptide of music that hits with an intensity of force that one can never fully anticipate, everything inside me is washed out to sea and all I am able to feel at that moment is a primal connection to the music that courses through my body.

SET LIST
Jambi
Stinkfist
46 & 2 (YouTube Link)
Schism
Rosetta Stoned
Flood
10,000 Days
Lateralus (Performed with Pat Mastelotto and Trey Gunn from King Crimson)
Vicarious