Review: Tool - Allphones Arena, Sydney

  • Review: Tool - Allphones Arena, Sydney
    POSTED


    Last weekend, I was lucky enough to attend not 1 but 2 Tool shows! I have a good friend in the lighting team and was given a pass to both shows, which allowed me to sit at Front of House in the Sound/Lighting/Visual area which was the most mind-blowing experience.

    image

    Tool had the strangest support act a DJ playing electro house but, as heard through the grapevine, Maynard chose this personally because after listening to music they did NOT come to the show to hear, fans respond even greater when Tool take the stage how clever. You would also think that this is to boost merch sales but just wait, theres a whole other tact to that.

    Once the DJ got off and Tool stepped on stage, the sound that erupted from the crowd was amazing. I just smiled that noise is the reason why I love this industry so much.

    Now, there are a couple of reasons why I love Tool so much 1, the Alex Grey artwork is incredible. 2. The videos are UNREAL. 3 Danny Carey is in my opinion one of the greatest drummers to ever live. 4 Maynard James Keenan. I love how he only cares about what people hear, not how much of the band people see.

    image

    On the Friday night, they opened the show with Third Eye, opening with the amazing heartbeat soundscape sending people into a little bit of an excited frenzy, watching the band take to the stage and then a massive roar when Maynard steps up and takes his position on a riser next to Danny.

    Ok lets talk about that for a second. I dont know about any of you but I love the fact that Maynard is an upstage front man, he doesnt care about running around the stage like a lunatic, amping up the crowd, or even having lighting on him (He request to be unlit for the entire show) hes all about making sure the fans are there to listen to the music, so he just stands silhouetted (and sometimes quickly lit with a basic wash strobe of the stage) to the left of Danny, rocking back and forth singing (and screaming) his little heart out. I absolutely love this.

    The show went on with Vicarious, Schism (my favourite Tool riff) they projected that amazingly messed up video on 4 different screens around the stage too, gotta love the head nodding all fours walk , Pushit (with a quick little drum solo from Danny) and Intension. The lighting state for Intension was one of the prettiest, trippiest things Ive seen at a concert. This was one of the first songs that they really started to use their lasers. Filling the air with a thick haze and projecting lasers and lights through it, slowly sprinkling red metallic confetti from the ceiling this track was one that you could just completely lose yourself in.

    image

    They then played Lateralus (with a snippet from Orion) and then completely surprised the audience with a jarring projections of the word INTERMISSION flashing across the screen, with a laser clock counting down from 12:00 This is the point of the show that people started laughing nervously and shrieking their exclaims of WHAT? At a TOOL SHOW?! I found it to be quite hilarious Hello beer and merch sales now thats what Im talking about as a clever merch sales plot force the audience to find something to do for 12 minutes how about that Hoodie?


    image

    Danny Carey stepped onstage by himself and had a little solo sesh that man can paradiddle and press roll like nobodies business I could seriously listen to him play a drum solo for half of the show, he plays that thing like a piano, the amount of melodic sound he can get out of a few hanging, floor and roto toms is incredible

    image

    They came back to end the show with Jambi, Forty-Six & 2 and Aenema. Lets just acknowledge something. A mirror ball at a Tool concert. Thats all.

    image

    Maynard finally had a little something to say to the audience (Up until this point, he wasnt really keen on talking to much, which is usual for Maynard, but as Adelaide shows recently had to be cancelled due to him losing his voice, who can blame him for being a tad quiet?) This show was Friday, May 3, the day the world heard of the passing of Jeff Hanneman, the guitarist of Slayer to which Maynard simply said, This one is dedicated to Jeff Hanneman from Slayer You guessed it Stinkfist. What an incredible way to end a show. Ok, the people who caught the drumsticks and picks probably thought their end to the show was better, but at least in the middle of the arena, Stinkfist was a great end for me.

    Then I proceeded to head out and wait for over an hour in probably one of the funniest cab ranks of my life, being offered to be driven to the City from Homebush for $250 yeah, thanks Sydney Taxis.

    Saturday Nights show was a little different to Fridays so if you only went to one show, well sucks to be you.

    image

    They opened the show with a throwback to a 92 track Hooker with a Penis. The DJ had a worse reaction this night, leaving the stage to a round of boos surely hes expecting that by now right? They then launched into Sober, Schism, Pushit and the beautifully trippy Intension before closing up their first half again with Lateralus. During this first half, Maynard was a lot more chatty that last night Hands up if youre here, I mean, if youre totally here not tweeting, not texting, not thinking about anything else, just here in your bodies, hands up. Good, because Im not. Im kidding no kidding, as soon as he stopped speaking and started singing again the girl hanging around the entry to the Front of House area spent at least 20 minutes scrolling through every single one of her social networking feeds.

    This intermission was a little more fun a couple of the lighting/video guys decided it would be great to play a round of Asteroids (I had an argument with a friend on Facebook whether it was Asteroids or Space Invaders he won) which was projected via lasers onto the bands backdrop screen with people in the crowd rooting for Player 1 or Player 2.. of course I took a photo of it Because I was paying attention to that, I totally didnt see the chick walking around completely oblivious to the fact that she wasnt wearing ANYTHING from the waist up.

    image

    They kicked off their second half with another killer solo from Danny and ended with the same four songs Jambi, Forty-six & 2, Aenema and Stinkfist (not dedicated to Jeff tonight) though at the end of this show, they all seemed to linger a little bit longer on stage soaking up their applause and cheers for more. Danny especially walked back and forth for a little while, throwing both of his sticks out.

    image

    Once the show had finished, after being asked to please give some presents to Maynard a friend of mine (Chelsea with all the horror makeup on the blog, you may have seen her work) was convinced he thought we were groupies/hookers Im glad I was wearing my working pass! We got out of the way of the Front of House loud out, which seemed to start as the final note was played! We then scooted out via the loading dock to more fans asking us about the band and played the carpark one for one tango.

    Tool so far Best live show of 2013 for me. (And I went to Kiss and Motley Crue! So, this one was pretty damn amazing)

    -Amy C


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Last weekend, I was lucky enough to attend not 1 but 2 Tool shows! I have a good friend in the lighting team and was given a pass to both shows, which allowed me to sit at Front of House in the Sound/Lighting/Visual area which was the most mind-blowing experience.

image

Tool had the strangest support act a DJ playing electro house but, as heard through the grapevine, Maynard chose this personally because after listening to music they did NOT come to the show to hear, fans respond even greater when Tool take the stage how clever. You would also think that this is to boost merch sales but just wait, theres a whole other tact to that.

Once the DJ got off and Tool stepped on stage, the sound that erupted from the crowd was amazing. I just smiled that noise is the reason why I love this industry so much.

Now, there are a couple of reasons why I love Tool so much 1, the Alex Grey artwork is incredible. 2. The videos are UNREAL. 3 Danny Carey is in my opinion one of the greatest drummers to ever live. 4 Maynard James Keenan. I love how he only cares about what people hear, not how much of the band people see.

image

On the Friday night, they opened the show with Third Eye, opening with the amazing heartbeat soundscape sending people into a little bit of an excited frenzy, watching the band take to the stage and then a massive roar when Maynard steps up and takes his position on a riser next to Danny.

Ok lets talk about that for a second. I dont know about any of you but I love the fact that Maynard is an upstage front man, he doesnt care about running around the stage like a lunatic, amping up the crowd, or even having lighting on him (He request to be unlit for the entire show) hes all about making sure the fans are there to listen to the music, so he just stands silhouetted (and sometimes quickly lit with a basic wash strobe of the stage) to the left of Danny, rocking back and forth singing (and screaming) his little heart out. I absolutely love this.

The show went on with Vicarious, Schism (my favourite Tool riff) they projected that amazingly messed up video on 4 different screens around the stage too, gotta love the head nodding all fours walk , Pushit (with a quick little drum solo from Danny) and Intension. The lighting state for Intension was one of the prettiest, trippiest things Ive seen at a concert. This was one of the first songs that they really started to use their lasers. Filling the air with a thick haze and projecting lasers and lights through it, slowly sprinkling red metallic confetti from the ceiling this track was one that you could just completely lose yourself in.

image

They then played Lateralus (with a snippet from Orion) and then completely surprised the audience with a jarring projections of the word INTERMISSION flashing across the screen, with a laser clock counting down from 12:00 This is the point of the show that people started laughing nervously and shrieking their exclaims of WHAT? At a TOOL SHOW?! I found it to be quite hilarious Hello beer and merch sales now thats what Im talking about as a clever merch sales plot force the audience to find something to do for 12 minutes how about that Hoodie?


image

Danny Carey stepped onstage by himself and had a little solo sesh that man can paradiddle and press roll like nobodies business I could seriously listen to him play a drum solo for half of the show, he plays that thing like a piano, the amount of melodic sound he can get out of a few hanging, floor and roto toms is incredible

image

They came back to end the show with Jambi, Forty-Six & 2 and Aenema. Lets just acknowledge something. A mirror ball at a Tool concert. Thats all.

image

Maynard finally had a little something to say to the audience (Up until this point, he wasnt really keen on talking to much, which is usual for Maynard, but as Adelaide shows recently had to be cancelled due to him losing his voice, who can blame him for being a tad quiet?) This show was Friday, May 3, the day the world heard of the passing of Jeff Hanneman, the guitarist of Slayer to which Maynard simply said, This one is dedicated to Jeff Hanneman from Slayer You guessed it Stinkfist. What an incredible way to end a show. Ok, the people who caught the drumsticks and picks probably thought their end to the show was better, but at least in the middle of the arena, Stinkfist was a great end for me.

Then I proceeded to head out and wait for over an hour in probably one of the funniest cab ranks of my life, being offered to be driven to the City from Homebush for $250 yeah, thanks Sydney Taxis.

Saturday Nights show was a little different to Fridays so if you only went to one show, well sucks to be you.

image

They opened the show with a throwback to a 92 track Hooker with a Penis. The DJ had a worse reaction this night, leaving the stage to a round of boos surely hes expecting that by now right? They then launched into Sober, Schism, Pushit and the beautifully trippy Intension before closing up their first half again with Lateralus. During this first half, Maynard was a lot more chatty that last night Hands up if youre here, I mean, if youre totally here not tweeting, not texting, not thinking about anything else, just here in your bodies, hands up. Good, because Im not. Im kidding no kidding, as soon as he stopped speaking and started singing again the girl hanging around the entry to the Front of House area spent at least 20 minutes scrolling through every single one of her social networking feeds.

This intermission was a little more fun a couple of the lighting/video guys decided it would be great to play a round of Asteroids (I had an argument with a friend on Facebook whether it was Asteroids or Space Invaders he won) which was projected via lasers onto the bands backdrop screen with people in the crowd rooting for Player 1 or Player 2.. of course I took a photo of it Because I was paying attention to that, I totally didnt see the chick walking around completely oblivious to the fact that she wasnt wearing ANYTHING from the waist up.

image

They kicked off their second half with another killer solo from Danny and ended with the same four songs Jambi, Forty-six & 2, Aenema and Stinkfist (not dedicated to Jeff tonight) though at the end of this show, they all seemed to linger a little bit longer on stage soaking up their applause and cheers for more. Danny especially walked back and forth for a little while, throwing both of his sticks out.

image

Once the show had finished, after being asked to please give some presents to Maynard a friend of mine (Chelsea with all the horror makeup on the blog, you may have seen her work) was convinced he thought we were groupies/hookers Im glad I was wearing my working pass! We got out of the way of the Front of House loud out, which seemed to start as the final note was played! We then scooted out via the loading dock to more fans asking us about the band and played the carpark one for one tango.

Tool so far Best live show of 2013 for me. (And I went to Kiss and Motley Crue! So, this one was pretty damn amazing)

-Amy C


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