What: Tool with Trans Am
Where: Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre
When: Last night
Rating: Rating 4.5 (out of five)
Rock acts such as Pearl Jam, Green Day, Nirvana and the Red Hot Chili Peppers all visited Victoria on their way up to the big-time. But not one did so while smack dab in the midst of its commercial peak.
Perhaps someone forgot to tell that to Los Angeles prog-metal act Tool, which last night became one of the few Grammy-winning bands to grace the city -- not to mention our oldies-friendly two-year-old arena -- while on a serious roll.
What a streak it has been for the 17-year-old band. Its fourth full-length album, 10,000 Days, debuted at No. 1 last year by selling a staggering 564,000 copies during its first week in stores.
The band maintained that same buzz last night at the sold-out Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, as approximately 7,000 fans soaked in a truly unique audiovisual experience. Fans came from afar for the gig, one of just three in ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ on the band's tour. Hours before the concert, a Honda Element was cruising downtown Victoria, with Washington state plates, sporting a hastily made back-window sign that read: "Tool tickets=$100. Girls' night out=Priceless."
During the weeks leading up to the event, a pair of ducats were selling for $600 on eBay. That gives you an idea of Tool's influence. This isn't just a rock band; this is the rock band for a new, deadly passionate generation of rock fans.
Apparently, these same fans can't be trusted. Tool's concert Thursday in Kelowna was reportedly marred by a quasi-riot that resulted in 22 arrests. The Victoria audience was considerably calmer (though perhaps it had to do with signage that said, due to the "nature of the show," alcohol would be cut off as Tool hit the stage) but no less appreciative.
Marijuana was also strictly prohibited, but that wasn't clove cigarettes we smelled as the band dimmed the lights shortly after 9 p.m. The set-up was typical Tool: an all-white Plexiglas floor for the classy folks, and six big screens for the potheads. If you know anyone who was there for the filming of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, we'd appreciate hearing from them, because this was a light show unlike anything we've ever had the pleasuring of seeing.
The music was also better than anything we've ever had the pleasure of hearing, at least in some time (Stinkfist? Truly great.) On its recordings, Tool can occasionally let ego get in the way of its direction; on stage last night, a song like Rosetta Stoned, from 10,000 Days, grew new arms and legs, which it then used to beat the living daylights out of us.
The visuals were spectacular to the point of being distracting. But judging by the fact that mohawked singer Maynard James Keenan was almost hidden, staged at the back on a riser but without a spotlight, we're assuming the act prefers to be almost non-existent.
That wasn't the case with drummer/superhero Danny Carey. Keenan was amazing and intriguing, as were shred-tacular guitarist Adam Jones and thunderfooted bassist Justin Chancellor. But we're going on the record right now: We've seen our share of drummers, and only jazz man Brian Blades has him beat. Carey is a physical specimen capable of fills that turned our grey matter black. And when he hit his snares and kick drums -- he did it twice on most occasions, when only once was needed -- his beats were like the hammer of the gods.
It wasn't a concert for the Tool novice, mind you -- at least one interested in the stoner-rock minutiae of the evening. The visuals were fasinating but overwhelming, while Keenan's lyrics -- some of which are deeply personal and deceptively political -- were lost in the arty milieu.
You had to be in it for the long haul. The band doesn't do short and sweet (each of its full-length recordings runs an average of 75 minutes) but the bulk of what we saw, due to deadline considerations, was simply awesome.
