TOOL and King Crimson at Red Rocks Amphitheatre

Aug 3- Morrison, Colo As it's turned out, TOOL is one of the few bands remaining from the big alterna-metal wave of my college days. TOOL burst onto the national scene with their Lollapalooza inclusion in the summer of 1993. Add in a freaky MTV video with the obligatory airings on "Beavis and Butthead" and a cult phenom was born. Furthermore, in the years since the big 93 explosion, TOOL has maintained an aura of mystery around themselves. Band members do not appear on VH-1's "The List", "TRL", "Polictically Incorrect" or even "Saturday Night Live". You'll never even hear a radio spot saying "Hi, this is Maynard from TOOL.. you're listening to 97x..BANG.. the Future of Rock and Roll". Nope, by refraining from the traditional promotional routes, the TOOL phenom has gathered more power by simply NOT being promoted. Further witenss of this fact is evidenced by the 2001 Red Rocks concert schedule. Of the 30-40 dates listed, the only one that sold out was: August 3- Tool and King Crimson. Crap, not even big names like John Mellencamp or John Tesh could accomplish the feat TOOL pulled off. Throw in the fact that this was TOOL's North American tour kick-off for "Lateralus", and you have very excited fans and an air of exclusivity.

Additional amazement about this band's popularity. While, all the dipshit Denver radio stations were promoting shitty shows of lesser bands, TOOL was rarely mentioned on the airwaves. Colorado Springs' own KILO, however was probably the only public station in Colorado to heavily promote the TOOL gig. They even sponsored a pre-sale ticket release, coordinated with TOOL's own website. So, while all of the Denver radio clones were busy babbling about the Fucking Avalanche, fart jokes, or playing Korn, the TOOL concert was rapidly selling tickets on Thursday morning. The pre-sale was also spread by word of mouth (or email, bulletin board, whatever), on the Internet. Friday morning was the official ticket release date. By then, only a handful of tickets were left, and many fans were feeling pissed off or slighted. Many had to enlist ticket agencies, or search eBay. All the while paying up in the $300 range to score tickets. To paraphrase Lance Storm: "don't blame TOOL..blame yourself". Moral of this mini-rant: pay attention and use all outlets to pursue your interests. Above all else DO NOT listen to Denver radio, clones!

That being said, I was one of the educated fans who snagged exceptional seats during the pre-sale. I was feeling pretty cool. I snagged two seats on the first row of the reserved section- Row 25. The standard with all Red Rocks shows is that the first 24 rows are General Admin... next 40 or so are reserved...and the remaining 20 or so, up top, are General Admin. Basically, if you want front row, you must have no life, camp out in lines all day, and stand in unorganized chaos with lots of pushing and shoving all night.

We arrive around 7:00 pm and make the long, winding walk into the ampitheatre. For the record, it was me and my longtime concert-going tag team partner, the big bro, GStragand in attendance. Most of the crowd was comprised of the college/hippy/Boulder bunch. About every 20 yards, somebody is asking for tickets. Others ask us for cool ways to sneak into the concert. One guy even asks us if we brought any "extra shirts I can wear"? (WTF?!!?) Several kids show up with no tickets, and plan to scale the rocks, or hike miles above the theatre to try to see, or even hear, the show. Security guards are stationed everywhere, and I'm rather curious to see if any of these kids were succesful. All the ticket-less dudes we met were VERY determined and into the band, so I sincerely hope they succeeded, or at least had a fun night and made some new friends in the Jefferson County holding cells.

I'm able to break the rules and sneak in my own squeeze bottle of water. I had my wisdom teeth extracted last Friday, so I tell the guards that it's a saltwater solution I need to rinse my mouth every two hours. Techincally, it's true.. but in reality, I didn't want to have to walk back down to the car just to drop my bottle off in the truck. I snag a black concert shirt at the entrance. (35 is the going price, so all aspiring TOOL concert goers). As I've gotten older, I've preferred tour books...but I didn't see anything like that being offered. (If you see any at the subsequent shows, please E-MAIL me and let me know). After much seat confusion, we meet three college girls who try to be enforcers of the seating chart. Great, princess.. now you be sure to tell EVERYBODY in attendance if they're violating your personal space. It's your world, after all. A bit later, we had a Fat Dumbass From Pittsburgh try to start problems over the same issue. (But ES, Yer from Pittsburgh, aren't you??) Yes, but I'm FROM Pittsburgh...this guy LIVES in Pittsburgh.... BIG difference. I got smart and LEFT Pitt. In short, this was the most ill-manndered crowd I have been involved with. Everyone was yelling at each other, flipping each other off, bitching about seats, or just being a general dick/cunt.

Okay, FINALLY the music. King Crimson walks on to open the show. This is an odd choice for an opening act, but they were a big influence on TOOL. Everyone seemes amused as the 4-piece Kings dish out their unusual jazz/fusion/rock mixture. I'm especially intrigued by the bassist and his style of playing. They also have an Old Dude, who sits on a barstool, with a sound board, effects and playing the gee-tar. To me, these guys sound like really obscure YES. Similar to the experimental stuff that was popular in the late 60's and 70's. Sorta like Frank Zappa, or real early Steve Vai (like "the Flexable" LP). If I listen closely, I hear certain arrangements that can be traced down to TOOL's work. After roughly two songs, the curiousity/novelty factor seems to wear off on most of the crowd. No booing, but everyone around us seems bored. A few teenaged idiots try to get into the music by bouning, nodding their heads, or doing the dreaded White Guy Jog (go to any dance club to see the WGJ). Keyword here is "try". I don't feel as if anybody present would go home and say "hey, I LOVED that King Crimson stuff.. I need to get their CD's". They might SAY that, but I seriously doubt their true sentiments. They'd simply try to get into King Crimson because "TOOL likes King Crimson, ergo, I must like them", and not out of genuine appreciation or love of the music. My overall assessment: not my cup of tea, but King Crimson made a better opener than any crappy psuedo-metal FM act. Example: I would have been incredibly annoyed if, say, Linkin Park or StereoMud had been the opener.

After an hour or so, TOOL finally starts to creep into the theatre. The anticipation is incredible as the lights go off and the giant video screen lights up. The opening notes of "the Grudge" start out, and TOOL launches into that track. The stage arrangement is set up to emphasize the video screens, however. The guitarist/bassist combo of Adam Jones and Justin Chancellor stand at the front of the stage, while the drumkit and vocal platform flank the rear. Maynard James Keenan remains on his platform all night, silhouetted against a simulcast of the giant video screen, while writhing into his vocals.

After "Grudge", they launch right into "Stinkfist", and the crowd goes ape-shit. The video screens continue to show the disturbing animated imagery that the band is famous for. "Grudge" was spiced up with shots of a doughy-glowing C-3PO type figure, and "Stinkfist" had several scenes from the video. One song even featured nightmarish forms that resembled Hot Pockets, crawling around. As performists, the musicians are not too animated, and I appreciate this fact. They are up there to showcase their music, not to act like rockstars or showcase each indvidual. The stage stays dark most of the night, and the spotlights never shine on any individual member. Lights and silhouettes permeate the rocks behind the stage, adding to the projection of the video images.

As mentioned, Maynard stays on his platform, and is not into the traditional "front man" antics. (Example: he doesn't ask stupid questions like : "where is the loudest section, tonight??? Lemme hear ya!"). Jones and Chancellor rarely move from their playing positions. The music, when spliced with the imagery, makes a very engaging and unqiue performance. It's funny, but I felt as if they were artists, or...gasp, actual musicians..and not egotistical "rockstars". The music remains the focus.

The band moves on, into more material. I belive this was the order: "Grudge", "Stinkfist", "Prison Sex", "Forty-Six & Two", "Schism", "Disposition-Refelction", "Sober", "Parabol/Parabola", "Aenima" and "Lateralus". I'm not as familiar with the new album's stuff, so I think they might have added a few new tracks in the middle, around "Schism". They also took a looooonng intermission, disguised as creepy sound clips and repeating images. Surprisingly, it did very little to slow the show's momentum and did not seem disruptive. They also flashed/passed silhouettes of the Laterallus "eye-circle" design on the giant rocks which border the ampitheatre. Made it seem rather surreal, or mystical. A feeling I'm positive the band was aiming for.

During "Schism", I was pleased to see that Maynard was playing his own gee-tar, to compliment Jones. I always get a kick when a vocalist gets a chance to contribute to the music, if it's only a few chords, a la Paul Stanley. We also noticed that Jones was switching guitars alot... about one every other song. I'm guessing he had certain gee-tars tuned differently for each song. However, my bro mentioned that it's possible that they were having trouble keeping the gee-tars tuned. Denver's dry climate has been known to affect wooden instruments, so that may have been the case, as well.

After the intermission/sound montage, the band returns, and Maynard even appears to have painted his face: white with a black "mask" around the eyes (Sorta like Green Lantern Hal Jordan, from my vantage). Maynard thanks the crowd and voices how excited and honored they are to be playing with King Crimson. He deadpans: "This is like Lenny Kravitz getting to play with Led Zeppelin...or Britney Spears getting to play with Debbie Gibson. It's like that...only it's not". That's the thing I dig about TOOL, just when you think they're getting all over-the-top serious, they mix in their sense of humor. Their website and the way they fucked with Napster users this Spring were pranks worthy of Andy Kaufmann. Depsite what you may think, TOOL are some funny dudes, out having a good time.

"Sober" gets a HUGE reaction from the crowd. Interestingly enough, for this song the screens do NOT show the famous stop-animation video. They show close-up scenes of LASIK surgery and two shaky female figures, being hassled by a mechanical arm. They follow it up with "Aenima", and the crowd knocks the ape-shit meter up even further! So much, that we're approaching "Planet of the Apes" levels of ape-shit! Somebobdy call Cornelius! I'd go out on a limb and say that "Aenima" (the song) is TOOL's masterpiece. The cynical lyrics and music arrangement are phenomenal. Played to perfection, this night. "Parabol/Parabola" is another highlight of the set.

After "Lateralus", the show ends with no encore. I was desperately hoping they would consider playing their covers of either "No Quarter" or "Stranglehold", but I was satisfied with the 90+ minute set. They put on a tremendous show, with everything a TOOL fan could expect. A very unique show, and one I'm sure will stick in my head for awhile. As I type this now, I still have the image of Maynard's silhouette, while singing the harmony in "Parabola".

For sheer performance, I'd rate this show an "A". Overall, the show would drop to a "B", due to the sheer rudeness of the crowd. Plus, getting out of Red Rocks took longer than the actual show. I'd like to see TOOL in a vaccum, without the annoying college fucks, but ya take what ya can get. In this case, what I got was exceptional.

Comment about this article: Contact The Asshole Who Wrote This!

BACK to music index