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The Tool Page: An Article

Publication: NME

Date: May, 2001

Transcribed by
Stu (stuniversal@hotmail.com)


  page: 
 title: Tool: Atlanta The Tabernacle 
author: Tony Ware

"You're a fucking tool!" someone yells in the streets of 
downtown Atlanta outside the Tabernacle, a former Baptist 
church-cum-concert hall. Part of the crowd - several thousand 
strong standing in a line that will circle the block for over two 
hours - screams in support. They have no idea why people 
are yelling. 

It could be the start of a fight. It could be a show of support 
for the band Tool cloistered inside. Or it could be someone 
who has been royally fucked trying to get even, because 
tonight there is an epidemic of counterfeit Tool tickets being 
sold, with estimates of up to 600 in circulation, many sold for 
over $100. It's the day art-metal band Tool put 
out 'Lateralus', their first album in five years. Atlanta is one 
of four initial American tour dates, and legitimate tickets, now 
commanding up to $500, sold out in three minutes. 

Inside, an Eastern-influenced drone swells as 'Lateralus' 
album art - an eye in a flame - dances on the screen. Singer 
Maynard James Keenan - known for his outrageous attire - 
wears a militaristic outfit of black leather. For the next two 
hours the band thunders through songs from all four albums 
as stuttering loops of computer generated and stop action 
nightmares throb to the beat among polarized nudes 
wrestling underwater and eye surgery. Powerful lights grip and 
guide the overwhelmed crowd. 

Keenan, head shaved, hunches and lurches like the 
characters in Tool's famous videos as he wails before the 
video wall. The hothouse crowd shower his words back, twice 
as hard on songs like 'Sober', 'Stinkfist', 'Prison Sex', 'Opiate' 
and 'Schism'. And then with 'Lateralus'' title track a little 
before one a.m. it's over, a little shorter than the wait in line, 
an evening mix of brilliance and bullshit. 


Posted to t.d.n: 04/21/02 19:05:35