Who Is On Tour With Tool?
Tool Tickets is today on a world tour promoting their fifth studio album titled “Fear Inoculum," which was released in August of this year, thirteen years after their previous album. The basic lineup of Tool, which includes Maynard James Keenan, Adam Jones, Justin Chancellor, and Danny Carey, has been actively touring since the album’s release in August 2019.
Keenan is the lead singer of the band, and his vocal style as well as his theatrical performance of the songs are among the key highlights of Tool’s live performances. Adam Jones is a guitarist who is famous for his ability to create a dark mood and use various effects. Justin Chancellor is a pulsing bassist with heavy grooving, and he often syncs well with the band’s drummer, Danny Carey, who is widely considered one of the greatest rock/metal drummers. His beats and polybeats are intricate and provide the framework for the band.
Whether watching Tool live for the first time in 1993 or the most recent of their 30+ years of touring, the band has had an impressive stage show with visuals and lighting. To support this latest tour, the band has brought on board the services of visual artist Dominic Hailstone, who has previously done work for the band. They have had several LED screens around the band and large projection screens at the back of the stage. These feature cryptic, often disturbing graphics and animations that are characteristic of Tool’s visual identity.
The lighting rig also consists of moving lights, strobes, spots, and so on that give a dramatic effect to the show. As for the sonic side, the band provides its own sound equipment and great guitar and bass setups to achieve perfect sounding. Behind the curtains, they have a skilled pool of technicians, engineers, computer programmers, and many other crew members who all accompany them to run this stage extravaganza.
For their latest tour, Tool is taking opening acts from different bands that belong to the rock and metal genre. One of their primary warm-up bands is Blonde Redhead, an artsy, slow-tempo, and melancholic-sounding post-punk trio that complements Tool’s heavy prog-metal rather well. Another common starter is The Acid Helps, a psych-rock band that counts Tool’s drummer Tim Alexander as a member. In other venues, bands such as Meshuggah, an extreme technical metal band, warm up the crowd with their chaotic, polyrhythmic music.
In some instances, Tool has allowed unknown independent artists from the corresponding city to open for them on selected tour dates. For example, in one of the shows they did in Berlin, they started with German progressive metal band The Ocean, and in one of the shows they did in Japan, they started with Japanese psychedelic rock duo Kikagaku Moyo. This goes in line with Tool’s reputation as a band interested in art and creativity outside the sphere of popular culture.
Concerning guest musicians performing with Tool, it is sometimes seen that Justin Chancellor plays with the opening bands during some of their performances. Chancellor participated in the recording of a track by The Acid Helps and has occasionally joined them to perform on bass in this song when they are billed together with Tool. However, Tool’s songs themselves are complex, are written in a tight way in terms of instrumentation, and are not known to have sit-in guests for their performances.
Tool is fronted by Maynard James Keenan, who has another active band known as Puscifer, which has been Tool’s opener on their previous tours. While Puscifer is not considered an opening band on the latest Tool tour, Maynard Keenan is known to play a couple of Puscifer songs on an acoustic guitar before Tool’s performance. These are very emotional performances that demonstrate Keenan’s softer side as a singer and are a perfect lead-in to the heavy Tool sets that follow them.
Another interesting fact is that Danny Carey has another band under the name of Legend of the Seagullmen, which consists of members of The Dillinger Escape Plan and Mastodon. However, they have not played as an opening band for Tool up to this point. While on tour for Tool, Carey remains committed to the band, but at the same time, during performances, he can incorporate short solos that display his highly skilled and diverse playing on the kit.
Tool has a very loyal following of fans, and many of them would drive for hours to attend a concert when Tool is in town since they rarely go on tours, as has been seen in the past. The atmosphere of these newest shows has remained rather intense as they keep wowing audiences with their elaborate, full-sensory stage performances as well as complex music compositions. They have been able to fill up their arenas on their ongoing 2020 tour across North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
With them on tour is their entourage, which makes their grand performances happen every night. This also includes the aforementioned visual design team, sound, guitar, and drum technicians, lighting and projection designers, cameramen, and many others. They even take the merchandise team on the road with them to sell the band’s rock tees and hoodies to fans.
When the latest marathon run of Tool concludes in 2023, fans can never be too sure about the next tour. However, their creative performance and incredible stage presence in their live performances earned the duo a concert reputation over the years as the band not to be missed whenever on tour. For now, their die-hard fans can still get the chance to see them perform live on this massive world tour alongside their regular production team and a list of other famous bands as the opening act.
