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Rating: After years of waiting, Tool finally come to Rome, and I couldn't miss the appointment.
The curiosity and excitement of being able to attend one of their concerts is immense, but it is immediately dampened by news that leaves me with a bitter taste.
A few days prior, the concert is moved from the Tennis Center, which usually has great acoustics, to the Marino Ice Rink, a venue that, on the contrary, leaves much to be desired.
I arrive early, but attendance is very slow, it won't be until 9:30 PM before the arena is completely full.
Before the concert starts, a guy gets on stage and advises everyone to "not take photos and videos because it is expressly requested by the artists; there's a risk they could suspend the concert!!"…fortunately, that doesn't happen, or there would have been chaos.
Mynard and company enter the stage around 10 PM, accompanied by the instrumental interlude “Lost Keys” from the latest album, and amidst the general noise, the concert truly begins with the subsequent “Rosetta Stoned.”
As I imagined, Mynard will sing the entire concert with his back to the audience, standing on a small stage beside the drums.
Unfortunately, the acoustics, especially in the first piece, are terrible; bass and drum hits bounce off the walls of the venue, making it hard to distinguish the instruments.
It gets better with “Stinkfist” and “Forthy six and 2”, which set the audience in motion, even stirring up a decent mosh pit.
The four from L.A. play perfectly, not missing a beat, especially Danny Carey. Besides impressing me with his massive stature, he is the most inspired and delivers an abundance of numbers behind the drums to the audience. Worth mentioning is bassist Justin Chancellor's work, usually the least mentioned in the band, who provided an excellent performance, not only bordering on perfection but also moving a lot on stage.
Mynard and Adam, on the other hand, did not surprise me. From the former, I expected him to sing well and have his back to the audience, as for the latter I was aware of his cold impact on stage, practically a figure, even though his way of playing is crucial for Tool's sound, and I would define him as the brain of the group, the one who, besides inventing the most incisive riffs and meticulously curating the sounds, is also the author of most of the videos.
Indeed, behind them, continuous videos are projected on four panels, and this is one of the things I appreciated the most because they perfectly connect to the music and give a sense of instability; at certain moments, they make you travel.
The concert flows between old glories and new entries, from “Lateralus,” “Aenema,” “Sober,” “Shism”, to the recent “Vicarious,” “Jambi,” “Right in Two”…seeing the audience's reaction, the old glories win, but the new songs hold their own, especially “Vicarious.”
After about an hour and twenty minutes of concert, our guys step to the front of the stage, Mynard finally turns around and high-fives his adventure companions, and after saying goodbye, they leave the stage.
For a few minutes, everything remains dark, and their return to the stage to close with some big hits, a “Third Eye” or “Parabol-Parabola,” seems inevitable.
Instead, that's enough for them... the lights come back on, and amidst the perplexity and some whistles from the audience, everyone goes home.
The final impressions are of having witnessed an exquisite live performance, played by musicians with a capital M, but I expected something more from them…aside from the acoustics that affected their performance, 11 songs in the setlist seem a bit too few to me….
P.S.: in the final judgment, 4 seemed too much and 3 too little… so I give a 3 and a half.
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