Photos + review: Britt Andrews
We all know how it goes, a band announces an Australian tour consisting of Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne, and social media descends into arguments about “What about Perth/Adelaide?” while Tasmania doesn’t even get a look in for the argument, let alone a date on the tour. But this time, with Tool being a Good Things Festival exclusive on the east coast, those who want a full length Tool set (or who just want to avoid being outside at a festival) have been forced to make the pilgrimage west, myself included. Feeling a bit like a cowboy heading into the American Old West, I made the 15 hour drive from Sydney to Adelaide to spend two nights at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre watching one of the greatest bands of all time. Thankfully for my back after the length of the drive, the Adelaide Entertainment Centre had exceptionally comfortable padded seats (looking at you, every single venue in Sydney with hard plastic seats).
Supporting Tool across these headline shows (two in Auckland, New Zealand, two in Adelaide, and one in Perth) were Byron Bay band Headsend. Never heard of them? Me either. But my initial confusion of “why is this band with only two songs released the sole support band for Tool across all their Australian and New Zealand dates?” quickly turned into “oh, that’s why”. Because they slapped, pretty damn hard. This three piece had an incredibly raw, grungy sort of feel to them. They had that prog-rock rhythm, with vocals reminiscent of Kurt Cobain, and despite only having two songs released at the moment, they looked completely at home on the stage in front of a massive crowd, even earning a “one more song” chant from the night two crowd. Headsend is one to watch, and I have no doubt they have gained a few fans in the Tool Army.
After what felt like a lifetime of watching a stagehand vacuum the carpet on stage (I cannot tell you why, but I can tell you that at all 11 Tool shows I have seen, plus the two Puscifer shows, the carpet is meticulously vacuumed before the band takes to the stage), the lights dimmed, and two hours of transcendence began.
Danny Carey, in his lycra skeleton suit, stepped up to the kit, and the first notes of Fear Inoculum rang out. What followed was an intense, transfixing, beautiful set, one that leaves me (who can rarely shut up) almost at a loss for words. Maynard James Keenan stood at the back of the stage, and would step down and away from the stage for extended instrumental periods, letting bassist Justin Chancellor and guitarist Adam Jones take the spotlight. Watching these two play alongside each other was a curious juxtaposition, with Justin gyrating and yelling as he played, seemingly mesmerised, while Adam remained somewhat stoic (and effortlessly cool) as he picked through even the most complex of riffs. This 2025 tour has been pulling some songs out from the archives, with night one featuring Crawl Away (last tour that was pulled out on was 1998) and night two was treated to Prison Sex, (before this tour, it was last played in 2002), both tracks of Tool’s debut album Undertow.
Seeing Rosetta Stoned played live felt almost like a religious experience, images of alien Greys flashing up on the screen behind them as Maynard half shouts the verses into a megaphone, the words spilling frantically from him, like a burst water main, flowing faster and faster:
You are the Chosen One, the One who will deliver the message. A message of hope for those who choose to hear it and a warning for those who do not.” Me. The Chosen One? They chose me! And I didn’t even graduate from fuckin’ high school.
Adam’s guitar solo closes out to Maynard’s megaphone scream turning back into a booming singing voice as the stage lights up:
Overwhelmed as one would be, placed in my position. Such a heavy burden now to be The One born to bear and bring to all the details of our ending, to write it down for all the world to see. But I forgot my pen. Shit the bed again, typical.
The encore started with Chocolate Chip Trip, preceded by a drum solo – despite Danny Carey being 64 years old, he continues to be one of the most phenomenal drummers alive.
I have seen Tool multiple times on their past four Australian tours, and can say without a shadow of a doubt that they are in their finest form ever. With bands that are over 30 years into their career, sometimes you see a tour that feels less like a showcase of triumph, and more like a desperate cry to be put out of their misery, kind of like watching Ric Flair’s final match. But the Tool you see in 2025 isn’t reliving glory days – they are in their glory days. These two Adelaide shows almost defy explanation – it feels like no words I have in my vocabulary can accurately describe the phenomenal beauty of these shows, and the exquisite form that these four musicians are in. All we can hope is that it isn’t another five year wait before we get another chance to see them, because I would follow this band to the ends of the earth.
