TOOL Concert Review (11-19-07)

“Wow.” I thought as I arrived to see TOOL last night (November 19, 2007) at the Tulsa Convention Center. The traffic and parking wasn’t atrocious but police officers were lined up at the door: We had to be frisked before going in. Thoroughly frisked. Typically only attending small venue shows, I had never been frisked before. But that was understandable and fine. The Dimebag tragedy was one too many.

I took my seat and shortly after 8, TransAm (a band I had never heard of before) graced the stage. I’m not going to outright say those guys sucked, but they were unimpressive. Their sound was loud and obnoxious synth pop; the vocals were yelled and annoyingly digitalized. However, it could just be that their type of music is the kind that does not work well live. They may sound good on record, and since I’m into some synth-pop I'd be willing to give them another chance. TransAm played about 5 songs and left behind a nonchalant crowd.

It seemed as if an eternity went by during the intermission as the crew changed over to TOOL's set. I don't know how long wait realistically was, I'm guessing around 30 minutes. Finally at around 9pm the lights darkened and we all went crazy jumping from our seats and onto our feet. From stage left TOOL emerged. Justin Chancellor (bassist) came out waving to the crowd followed by Danny Carey (drummer), Maynard James Keenan (vocalist), then Adam Jones (guitarist). The band immediately started up “Jambi” which was visually the coolest set they did. The stage was mostly orange as fire screens played behind the band. Due to this effect absolutely nothing was visible but band's black shadows. It looked really cool, especially when Maynard began doing his “back-bend” dance.

The show was overall astounding both musically and visually. I was amazed by how perfectly the band played their instruments, especially Justin when rolling around on stage drunk as a skunk (Maynard announced that it was Justin's birthday). When it came time for his bass solos and intros he really came through and couldn’t have been more spot on. There were absolutely no flaws, quite an admirable task in my eyes. I was also impressed by Danny’s estimated 5-minute drum solo during “Lateralus” (at least I think it was "Lateralus", it was hard to tell since a lot of the extended versions went on about 15 minutes and morphed into other songs). My only complaint is that Maynard's mic was turned down so low that I could hardly hear him or understand anything he was saying. At any rate I got the jist of it and made due by singing along to most of the songs.

In my opinion the best songs that were performed were “Stinkfist”, “Schism”, “Flood” and “Lateralus”. I don’t know a lot of the new songs as I’m more of an old school fan. However I knew ahead of time what the setlist would be so I didn't anticipate any favorites from Opiate, Undertow or Aenima. I did appreciate what I heard from 100,000 Days and may now consider picking up that album now.

The showed concluded with a group hug, a bow to the audience, and Justin in a huge afro wig. The fans were thanked and guitar picks, water bottles and drum heads were distributed amongst the first rows. TOOL seemed to really care about giving stuff away at this show and because of that I was so jealous of the people up front!. Anyway, I left the show pumped up and thoroughly satisfied. TOOL was everything I had expected they would be and totally worth the $65 ticket, which I had no doubt about about.

(Picture directly linked from Source)