Lollapalooza 1993 at Deer Creek near Indianapolis. Tool is getting its first major exposure. As we survey the crowd, someone says, “We’re Tool,” a guitar chord jagged enough to saw lumber blows out of the amps and there’s a pair of Doc Martens right under my nose. We are the mosh pit. We step back just enough to escape the roiling bodies to fully appreciate the sonic tumult erupting like an active volcano in front of us. Frontman Maynard James Keenan says, “This is our sensitive love ballad. It’s called ‘Prison Sex.’”The band and the crowd are soon competing over the title of Most Frenzied Entity at Lollapalooza.
Tool’s viscerally shredding set is designed to elicit gyrational sweat even without the unrelenting, cloudless sun. The mayhem on stage is unstoppable; Tool ratchets up the volume and dark energy with almost psychopathic intent. Metaphorically, this is exactly how every Tool show has felt to every subsequent audience over the past decade and a half, as the band agitates, cooks, refreshes, repeats. Thus may it ever be.
They play the PNC Pavilion with Tweak Bird. Get show details and Sound Advice here.
