Concert Review – Tool Makes Orlando And Tampa Feel Invincible

“Tales told of battles won”, I believe we all felt that way once concerts started to make a comeback. Tool is back after having to postpone-then cancel their Fear Inoculum tour at the beginning of 2020 when the Covid-19 Pandemic began. Now they have picked up where they left off by touring the U.S in 2022.

I attended both the Orlando and Tampa shows on February 8 and 9at the Amway Center (Orlando) and Amelie Arena (Tampa) in Florida. Opening the first leg of the 2022 tour is New York City’s indie band Blonde Redhead. Anyone who has been to a Tool tour before knows that Tool is not one to bring other major bands on board, rather they bring lesser-known bands or more obscure bands. With Blonde Redhead, the vibe was very ambient and chill-oriented. They certainly kept the audience in good vibes and they were an enjoyable 3 piece band worth watching and listening to. Their set consisted of 8 songs and lasted approximately about 45 minutes, give or take.

Once Blonde Redhead exited the stage, the anticipation began for Tool to hit the stage. They had a translucent thread-like curtain wrapped around the outside of the stage. As the lights went dark and the crowd is roaring with excitement, you hear the track “Litanie contre la Peur” playing in the background prior to any of the members going on stage, which is one of the interlude tracks of the Fear Inoculum album while the various Alex Grey artwork was being projected through the translucent curtains. Once “Litanie contre la Peur” was done playing, then the opening sequence of the title track “Fear Inoculum” song plays as Adam Jones, Justin Chancellor, Danny Carey, and last but certainly not least Maynard James Keenan make their entrance to the stage.

Once they were done playing the title track “Fear Inoculum”, they started to dive into the classics such as “Opiate”, “The Pot”, and “Pushit” (As the song progressed, the curtains then started to gradually be pulled back, leaving us with an unobstructed view of the whole stage and band). Once those songs were done, they went right back into the newer song titles such as “Pneuma”. After a couple more songs from Fear Inoculum and the classics before then, they went into a 12-minute intermission while the band exits the stage.

Once intermission was done, Danny Carey enters the stage and does his drum solo aka the song: “Chocolate Chip Trip”. My favorite part of the show comes immediately after Danny’s drum solo, where the whole band is sitting on chairs upfront of the stage performing an intimate intro to the song “Culling Voices”. This also features Danny Carey playing guitar for the first 3-5 minutes of the song before he goes back to playing the drums. As Maynard is singing and the rest of the band is playing, confetti is raining down from the rafters while purple lighting is surrounding the arena. “Culling Voices” has a semi-haunting vibe to it and the slow falling confetti as the band is playing certainly adds to the ambiance. Once they were done playing “Culling Voices”, Maynard then takes a short moment to tell the audience that he is tired, and for the last song we can all take out our “Stupid Fucking Cellphones” to film the remainder of the show. They concluded their set by playing “Invincible” from their Fear Inoculum album. A triumphant song to conclude the show it was.

With this tour in specific, it appears they certainly took a different approach with the setlist, as they played songs they normally did not play as often in the past. From previous tours I’ve seen Tool in they would play the big hits such as “Parabola”, “Schism”, and “Stinkfist”, however this time around they played the less common tracks from those respected albums, which I found to be a unique approach as it keeps their tour cycles fresh and more to explore. While this tour is heavily focused on their latest album Fear Inoculum (the set consisted of 6 songs from that album), it is safe to say that we fans do not mind it at all, as Fear Inoculum ended the 13-year drought since the release of their album before then titled 10,000 Days (It has certainly felt like 10,000 days since the last Tool album prior to Fear Inoculum).

Tool consists of Maynard James Keenan (Singer), Adam Jones (Guitar), Justin Chancellor (Bass), and Danny Carey (Drums).

Setlist For Orlando, FL

Setlist For Tampa, FL

More Info On Tool

Upcoming Tool Shows

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Post written by Sebastian Chaviano

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