If you took all the boring parts from Tool's previous albums..

[LightenUpFrancis]

Never really had a desire to listen to tool. Tried, not checking the boxes. What am I not getting?

My introduction to the band was the Parabola DVD, that played the "music video" and included the eerie Lustmord remixes. I didn't grow up with much exposure to popular music or music videos, and this was something far outside anything my friends were listening to. Just picked it up on a whim, back when stores like FYE and Hastings were still around.

Not to aggrandize it to the point of being a joke, but it sort of felt like discovering 2001: A Space Odyssey all on your own as a kid. It wasn't this immediate feel-good fantasy gratification, but an atmosphere I didn't quite understand and had to sit with for a few days. I think it was that challenge to approaching music as an intentional mood rather than "this is a rock song" that grabbed me, and it just happened to be Tool in that moment. There are other artists I can find that in now, but stumbling into something organically in your formative years just engrained that experience in a deeper way.

 

[CoreyW]

I am a fan of Tool, but I was let down by Fear Inoculum. I not one of those rabid Tool are the greatest to ever do everything though.

To me, Tool is more mood music, like Pink Floyd. I've only been able to see them once, but it was pretty amazing and it was at the start of the Fear Inoculum tour, like a 2 hour set.

 

[JohnnyGtar]

This...

They're one of the few bands I've ever heard do justice to a Zep tune.

 

[LightenUpFrancis]

This...

This was what they opened with the last time I saw them. One of my favorite setlist kickoffs to date.

 

[JohnnyGtar]

This was what they opened with the last time I saw them. One of my favorite setlist kickoffs to date.

It takes balls of steel to open with a song by the Kings.

 

[LightenUpFrancis]

It takes balls of steel to open with a song by the Kings.

Unsurprisingly, Danny brought the thunder for that one. Unholy amounts of kick. And really what a cool choice; the way it builds makes such great sense for a warmup.

Previous openers for the two prior tours were Hooker With A Penis and Third Eye. We were really spoiled for a few years there.

 

[FourT6and2]

The Grudge is incredible live. They usually open with that one when I've seen 'em. The little full rest before launching into the bridge/breakdown brings a ton of energy.

 

[LightenUpFrancis]

The Grudge is incredible live. They usually open with that one when I've seen 'em.

No Quarter, and then right into The Grudge, and my first time hearing both live. They were really digging in like they had something to prove, and it was a healthy reminder just how much low end they push when things get real.

 

[skoora]

To quote the most interesting man alive…
I don’t often listen to progressive heavy music but when I do, it’s Neurosis.

 

[LightenUpFrancis]

To quote the most interesting man alive…
I don’t often listen to progressive heavy music but when I do, it’s Neurosis.

Neurosis is the band I found 10 years too late, and still grateful I found them when I did.

There are days I wake up still sick over the loss of Brent Hinds. I pull up the video of Scott Kelly doing guest vox for "Blood and Thunder" and things quickly feel more even. What a gift to this earth.