tell them their pillar of faith has ascended

After a hectic weekend, I've finally gotten around to posting about the Tool show Jon and I went to see in Columbus. It was at the Nationwide Arena, which is a very nice venue. The facilities are all in great shape; I'd say it's much, much nicer than U.S. Bank Arena. The opening band, Isis, took the stage at 8 PM. I was actually surprised that they really weren't half bad. I'd say their style was fairly similar to Tool's except that they were mostly instrumental. They played long, jam-filled songs. When the vocalist did sing you couldn't really understand what he was saying, and half the time he decided to do death-metal screaming instead of actual singing, and that was just awful. But overall I thought Isis was actually pretty decent.

Tool came on around 9:10 to a solid white stage that was mostly barren except for the drum set, a couple amps and the lone microphone stand. Behind the white stage there were white projection screens about six or seven feet high, and above that was a plain black backdrop. Throughout the concert, the band would project visuals onto the white projections screens, the white stage itself, and the big square scoreboard in the center of the arena ceiling (the kind of scoreboards you see in basketball and hockey arenas). The visuals were mostly computer-generated images and designs, and I thought they really added a lot to the show.

"Stinkfist" was the opening song, which was a fine choice in my opinion. I like the song a lot and really got the crowd into it. Both it and "The Pot" both had little extended "jams" by the band which were great. The band played some brief little guitar and keyboard intro before "Forty-Six and Two", which is another favorite of mine. After a good version of "Jambi" the band launched into "Schism", which naturally got a big reaction from the crowd. The visuals for this was just the same music video, but considering that it's one of the strangest videos out there I had no complaints. "Schism" isn't my favorite Tool song due to the radio always over-playing it, but it was fantastic live. The band sped the middle of the song up to double-time, which was a refreshing change to the song. The instrumental "Lost Keys" led right into an extremely intense "Rosetta Stoned". The rapid-fire vocals at the beginning of the song didn't transfer as well to a live performance, but the rest of the song was fantastic. Very powerful.

Next the band played "Wings for Marie" and "10,000 Days" as one very long song, and in my mind it was the highlight of the show. The laser effects made their debut during "Wings", and I definitely thought it was a good choice to save them for this part of the show. These songs were written about singer Maynard James Keenan's recently deceased mother, and in my mind they represented a musical and emotional high water mark for the night. The show was both musically and visually at it's best during "10,000 Days". The combination of the screen projections with the new laser effects was amazing, and the song just blew the crowd away.

Tool's take on an encore was refreshing. Instead of ended the regular set with the lights going out and walking off the stage for five minutes while everyone cheers before returning, the band simply finished the last song of the regular set, grabbed some bottles of water, and sat in the middle of the stage. They'd talk to each other or to various roadies, all the while bathed in blue light while all the fans cheered and applauded. At one point one of the band members held up a lighter, and everyone in the crowd with one followed suit, which looked pretty cool. Then after a few minutes the guys simply got up and went back to their instruments.

"Lateralus" was the first song of the encore, and showcased new lighting effects from the previously bare black backdrop. Then they band played a long, ambient instrumental intro before launching into a blasting rendition of "Vicarious", the first single from 10,000 Days. Then they closed with "Ænema" (my favorite Tool song) which probably got the most reaction of any song the whole night from the crowd. It was awesome to see the entire arena so into it. I could have sworn that Maynard swapped two of the lines in the song around, but that's just nit-picking.

By the end Tool played for at least an hour and forty-five minutes, probably closer to two hours. The set list could have been a little longer, but the length of the concert is evidence of how long each of the songs is. I thought it was a fantastic show; I would definitely want to see them again. No real complaints about the set list either. I would have liked to hear "Sober" (we actually heard nothing off Undertow, but that's not a crime like not hearing anything from The Fragile at a NIN concert is) or some of the less well known songs off Ænima and Lateralus. "Right in Two" is the only other real song from 10,000 Days that we didn't hear, which was a shame because it's a fantastic song. But still, every song Tool played was fantastic, so I cannot complain. One of the best concert's I've been to, that's for certain.

Set List:
Stinkfist
The Pot
(short intro)
Forty-Six & Two
Jambi
Schism
Lost Keys
Rosetta Stoned
Wings For Marie
10,000 Days

Encore:
Lateralus
(ambient guitar-keyboard-drum intro)
Vicarious
Ænema