Live Review: Tool - AO Arena, Manchester
1st June 2024
Support: Night Verses
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Tim Finch
Typical! You wait sixteen years for a Tool gig in Manchester, then two come along (relatively) at once. Still, a first world problem and, if tonight’s show is half as good as the 2022 performance, it will be a feast for both the eyes and the ears.
Before Tool though, come Night Verses, with the poison challis of being able to play in front of a big crowd, but knowing that crowd broadly see you as a distraction to kill the time before the main event of the evening. No matter who you are, if you’re opening for the likes of Tool, Maiden, DC, Kiss, etc, most punters want you off and their idols on.
To their credit, the fellow Los Angeles, California-based three-piece make the most of their opportunity by a set of the highest musicianship, winning over the swelling crowd with recital of some of the most-dense and demanding musical passages you’ll hear. The band’s combination of alternative / post-rock/ shoegaze is merely the starting point for the musical explorations they offer. Predominantly an instrumental act, Night Verses have the feel of an even-more intense Animals as Leaders, with guitarist Nick DePirro regularly changing his guitar for one with more strings, which he manages to play as effortlessly as the last one. Bassist Reilly Herrera is the closest thing to a frontman as he is the one who addresses the crowd, but props should go to Aric Improta on Night Verses’ kit.
He beats and pummels his drums like there’s a personal vendetta to be avenged. While his guitar-slinging band-mates noddle away, Aric is getting down and dirty with some of the most athletic percussion I’ve seen in a long while. All the time, you must remember, having Danny Carey’s set-up standing sentinel over everything he’s doing. Night Verses tread that fine line between primal rhythms and refined flourishes, making their music accessible to all, not just academic musos.
Once the support has finished it’s like a swarm of worker ants take the stage in order to prepare the platform for Tool. All unnecessary items are uplifted and there’s a chap giving the floor a once-over with a cordless vac – could be a Dyson, difficult to tell from this distance – but he’s doing a thorough job of it.
The area goes dark, and a roar goes up as the musical performers take the stage to the heartbeat pulse of Third Eye, but the band drop into Jambi instead. Maynard taking his customary place at the back of the stage to Danny’s right. From where I’m stood I can pretty much see every one of Justin’s powerful hammer-ons, and it’s almost like a masterclass of his greatest techniques.
As Jambi unfolds, the enormous rear screens display all manner of surreal imagery. For this opener, it’s as though the recent Jonathan Yeo portrait of King Charles has come to life, as red shapes and clusters fold in on themselves. Fear Inoculum follows, with Maynard reminding the audience to leave their phones in their pockets and take a journey with the band.
The arena’s security and staff have been briefed to root-out any use of recording devices during the performance in order to reduce the level of distraction caused to the people behind anyone filming. He’s entirely right to do so, as a Tool show is an audio and visual experience, where keying into the music and being lifted-up by the imagery are integral to the show. A horde of screens peppering the darkness is nothing but an interference to that experience.
The first big roar of the night is met with Maynard asking Manchester what’s wrong? “You seem depressed,” he continues, stating we sound more like Nottingham than Manchester. That fires up the arena as Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann) acts as the intro to a very welcome Rosetta Stoned. Maynard switches to Danny’s left and straps on a megaphone to meet the vocal stylings of the song, as the screens show the kind of images reminiscent of 2001’s Stargate sequence and the creation of the universe scenes from Malick’s The Tree of Life.
Pneuma follows and is greeted like it’s been in the repertoire since the beginning, and the first surprise of the night comes in the form of Opiate opener, Sweat, the first song of the evening from before the 10,000 Days-era. The raw nature of the tune, when compared to the band’s later material, fits the bill perfectly and is a nice present to the long-term follower.
An epic version of Descending slithers it’s way to the beginning of The Grudge, one of my personal favourite Tool tunes, which finds the audience becoming an active member of the performance. Brilliant flashes illuminate the whole of the arena like it’s the middle of the day as the incessant pound of its beat drags everyone in.
There’s a twelve-minute intermission to give all a change to get their breath and voices back, and the band return, first with Danny, showing why he’s probably the best drummer in rock music and the natural successor to the late-great Neil Peart; and then Justin takes centre-stage, wringing beautifully tortured notes from his bass.
His solo bleeds into Undertow’s Flood, where he and Adam trade licks and confetti falls from the arena’s ceiling, reflecting the stage lights and giving the effect of the sky coming down.
For me, the beauty of this band is we all get to experience their music in different ways: even though we may be sat in the same room, the reaction provokes is varied and belongs singly in the eye and ear of the beholder. The lady sitting next to me is so involved in Invincible that she is acting out every nuance of the chorus’ lyric; a young lady further down has been on her feet since the start and appears to be having a religious experience tonight.
But that’s what all art should do: provoke a reaction in the user, and it is Maynard’s intension that the banning of recording devises from the bulk of the show allows for such an experience. He gives permission for the final track of the night to be filmed and a swath of cameras are pressed into action.
Again, he comments that Manchester sounds depressed, wondering to Justin “What’s wrong with your people?” and – knowingly – observes the arena sounds Scouse. Clearly going to get a reaction from a Manchester audience, Maynard innocently asks: “Why all the venom?”
The evening closes with Ænima and it’s amusing to think that a track about an oncoming cataclysm, which includes the line: “learn to swim” is being played in the rain capital of the country.
Once again, Tool prove themselves to be one of the greatest bands on the planet. Their unwavering dedication to their craft, while polarising to some, is sheer mana to the rest of us and having them back in town so soon after the last show in May 2022 is a blessing.
Shall I pencil in for 2026? Fingers-crossed.
Photo Credits: Tim Finch Photography
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