Tool Returns to Portland, OR with Triumphant Display of Heavy Prog … – Glide Magazine

Seeing a Tool show means entering into another world as the band opens the portal to their sense of oneness. This is a musical identity that has remained unrivaled in the band’s thirty-plus year career as they have created the kind of arena rock sound that is the right combination of heavy, druggy, dramatic, and masterful in its musicality. On their current North American tour, the band continues to promote their 2019 album Fear Inoculum – their first in almost fifteen years – alongside even newer tunes and the Tool “classics” that their diehard fanbase really wants. On Thursday, October 19th, Tool made a grand return to Portland, Oregon’s Moda Center for a nearly sold-out show that would see them flexing the entirety of their might. The show carried added significance not just because it was their first time to Portland in three years, but also because that 2020 show was one of the last concerts in the country as we all went into a forced pandemic lockdown (READ A REVIEW OF THAT SHOW). With all of this in mind, when Tool took the stage it immediately felt like they were back with a vengeance. 

Opening with the title track off Fear Inoculum, the band wasted little time as Danny Carey – positioned high and center as if presiding over his throne of drums – built an atmospheric energy that soon gave way to dark punk intensity and a deeply psyched out guitar solo from Adam Jones. The band pushed further with Jones’ familiar and sinister metal guitar chugging leading into “Jambi,” with singer Maynard James Keenan – sporting his now signature mohawk and eye paint – gripped the microphone and unleashed his dark and curling vocals. This song also saw Jones maintaining that rhythm while interspersing distorted flourishes of mini solos to crank up the overall sound with his multitude of effects and expansive jamming. Justin Chancellor would get his chance in the spotlight as he unfolded the now iconic bass notes of “The Pot” to massive applause from the audience, setting a brooding, pulsing tone as Keenan brought in his fiercely defiant vocal prowess. 

Any band worth their salt needs to deliver a light show that matches the brevity of their sound, and Tool has never disappointed in this regard. The band was surrounded by crisp and colorful screens projecting their psychedelic imagery while their heptagram – bearing a timely resemblance to a star of David – loomed ominously overhead throughout the show. But it was during the grungy “Rosetta Stoned” that the band chose to first deploy their lasers to make for a truly immersive lighting experience and complement the prog-rock composition unfolding before our eyes. By the time the band entered the realm of “Pneuma” – with Chancellor standing on a speaker to connect even closer to the audience and donning a beard that made it look like he could go from the stage to the Ukrainian frontline – the band let the song crawl forward in bestial glory as a slow-burning gear grinder of atmospheric pressure that felt submerged into an abyss, with only Carey’s illuminated percussion providing the light through the darkness. The expansive “Descending” was a trance-inducing beast highlighted by Jones’ monstrously impressive slide guitar work, and “Swamp Song” saw Keenan channeling brash punk energy in his vocals.             

Following the band’s twelve-minute intermission – a perfect amount of time to pull your mind together – Carey showed off his Portland Trailblazers uniform as he welcomed in the next set with the hit of a gong and the kind of complex drum solo worthy of its own arena show. This was in fact “Chocolate Chip Trip,” with Carey providing a mind-fucking display of how you build layers of textures and craft a sound that is both ambient and suspenseful. It also served as a perfect introduction to the intimate, almost acoustic “Culling Voices” that saw the band sitting in chairs and releasing sparkling confetti over the audience to create the feeling of moving through a forest on a quiet, snowy night.

Two of the most triumphant moments came during the final two songs of the show, with the band layering “Invisible” with enchanting and mysterious tribal sounds that built into a cataclysmic exchange of bass, drums and guitar. This was one of those moments that makes you scratch your head at how it’s possible these four guys can conjure such a rich world of sonic power. Following more than two hours of face-melting and mind-bending rock, Maynard James Keenan lightened the mood when he told crowd to pull their phones out and joked on them as he made his way through funny promotional announcements before band stretched past curfew with “Ænema.” The song’s blistering slide guitar and the rhythmic gymnastics of Chancellor and Carey’s antics put their mastery of the psychedelic arena rock sound on full display, offering another step in the journey of this epic band.  

All photos by Greg Homolka

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