Tool Brings Massive Sound, Stunning Visuals On Fear Inoculum Tour

2022-02-11

Tool_2022.02.08_AmwayCenter_OrlandoFL_KyleMartin9 — Tool at Amway Center in Orlando, FL on 2-08-22. Photo Credit: Kyle Martin

Orlando, FL – There’s a small fear the first time you go to a Tool concert that all the mystery, exclusivity, and legend surrounding the band is exaggerated hype.

It’s not.

The Los Angeles rockers crashed into Orlando’s Amway Center on Tuesday with all the subtlety of an earthquake, bringing with them a setlist amply padded with old hits and new jams.

Tuesday’s show was a rescheduled pre-pandemic date from 2020 in support of 2019’s Fear Inoculum, which featured prominently in the setlist.

Tool’s music succeeds as the sum of its parts, and opening track “Fear Inoculum” perfectly highlighted this. The solitary swell of Adam Jones’ guitar drew a roar from the crowd. Danny Carey joined in next, subtly picking up an almost Middle Eastern drum pattern. Justin Chancellor effortlessly slipped into the mix with thrumming bass, before frontman Maynard Keenan’s unmistakable voice floated out from the back of the stage.

Even the most ardent Tool fan will tell you their music takes patience; these are not Top 40 backyard barbecue tunes. But if you’re willing to go on that journey in your headphones, then the live performance is even more rewarding.

Tool have always carried a reputation for their visual arts as much as their music, with boundary-pushing stop motion music videos and elaborate CD packaging. That extends to their live performance, with massive video screens projecting weird and disturbing video loops, lasers etching the air and colored lights carefully choreographed to the ebb and flow of the music.

As “Fear Inoculum” faded out, Tool time traveled all the way back to their debut album with the sharp indictment “Opiate.” The rollicking fan favorite “The Pot” followed, chased by “Pushit” from 1996’s Aenima.

Live performances of these classics are nearly note perfect replicas, albeit at heart-stopping volume. Perhaps it’s this commitment to perfection or maybe the concentration required to play intricate 10-minute songs, but there’s little of the showboating or playing to the crowd you normally get from a band playing an arena.

Jones paced a small path from the front of the stage to a spot just in front of the massive drum kit hiding Carey. Chancellor was the most animated, rocking back and forth and generally getting lost in the music. Keenan lived up to his reputation for keeping to the shadows, bobbing and weaving from the risers set up beside the drums.

Even with only five full-length albums across 30 years, it’s just as remarkable what didn’t make the setlist as what the band ultimately chose. No “Vicarious,” “Aenima,” “Jambi”, “Schism”, or even slightly deeper cuts like “Parabol/Parabola”. (The setlist is not completely set; other tour stops have included the “Patient” and “Sober.”)

In some ways it seemed like they tempered the sweetness of new, soaring songs like “Pneuma” and “Descending” with the acidic bite of older tracks like “The Grudge” and “Hooker with a Penis.”

The latter track closed out the second act and ushered in a 12-minute intermission. Carey broke the breather with the weird and wonderful “Chocolate Chip Trip,” giving the rest of the band time to set up at the front of the stage.

Keenan took a rare front and center spot seated beside Jones and Chancellor (briefly playing a guitar) for the beginning of “Culling Voices”. The ethereal voice, muted lighting and softly falling confetti made for a surreal and beautiful experience. Closing out the more than two hour night was the powerful “Invincible.”