Tool, 22nd June 2024, Helviti, Copenhell Festival, Denmark

Tool press photo: Travis-Shinn
(Photographers were banned from Tool’s Copenhell show)

The progressive royalties are still out there supporting their latest album Fear Inoculum, which came out almost five years ago. Perhaps the fact that the album was met by commercial and critical acclaim is one of the reasons why Tool are still touring it, and another one is the fact that it was their first album in 13 years. And it’s not like the band has toured it non-stop, because band members were in the meantime also busy with other projects, especially band’s singer Maynard James Keenan, who’s also juggling his other projects A Perfect Circle and Puscifer.
Five years almost to the day since their first visit to Copenhell, the band was set to close the main stage of Copenhell 2024.

Last time they played here, Tool did play two songs from Fear Inoculum, which at that time still didn’t come out. This time around the fans were rather familiar with “new” songs and that added to the flow and the experience of the show.´

But the band opened with one of classics, “Jambi” from their 2006 album 10.000 Days and in many ways it’s a good introduction to the band, because it encapsulates many of the aspects of the band in a fairly approachable manner.

If you’ve experienced Tool live in their own headlining shows then you know that their stage setup on festivals is bit simpler and taking into the consideration that visuals do play a massive role for this band (live and in all other aspects), the festival shows do lack that final touch. But this time around thy did come closer to capturing that full 360-experience of their own shows.

Sonically the band was near-perfect and as for performance it goes without saying that it was jaw-dropping. It feels like that every time you see the band, yet it’s only part of the overall show and never steals the show.

Tool members never communicate much with the crowd, but taking it into the whole approach of playing live it’s not something that is missed. Experiencing Tool live is a full experience and no one aspect plays separate role. It’s the mixture of it all that creats that greater whole that is Tool in a live setting. Keenan’s tongue-in-cheek comments are, however, rather welcome and this evening the only thing we got was after the opening track “Why the hell is it so cold here?”. Well, welcome to Denmark, Mr. Keenan.

And speaking of weather, in days prior to Saturday, forecasts promised massive rain. Fortunately, it turned out not to hold up, so for the crowd the bare coldness as a basically a gift.

Set-list this evening was fairly similar to other shows of the tour, meaning that Copenhell crowd was also served couple of songs from Undertow, which turned 30 years, last year. The band has been embracing their debut album far more in past few years and it wouldn’t be surprising if that is apparent next time Tool release some new music. “Pneuma” from the latest album has turned out into a live classic, which in live setting can stand shoulder to shoulder with old classic from Ænima and Lateralus.  And speaking of those two albums, often on this tour the band would play either “Schism” or “The Grudge“ and “Ænema” or “Stinkfist”. This evening in Copenhagen, they played all four.

And unlike some other headliners of this festival Tool didn’t cut their show short, on contrary they played for an hour and 45 minutes. Closing with those two Ænima-classics rounded up the show perfectly and as for the show in general, one thing is sure – live there is no one else like Tool. You might like that, you might not, and you might be indifferent. But fact is that what Tool does live is unlike anything else.

SETLIST:

1. Jambi
2. Fear Inoculum
3. Rosetta Stoned
4. Pneuma
5. Intolerance
6. Schism
7. The Grudge
8. Flood
9. Invincible
10. Ænema
11. Stinkfist