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Tool play three deep cuts after 20+ years at tour opener.
Tool, the progressive metal titans whose albums function as sacred texts for their devoted following, delivered a seismic event for the ages at their tour opener, treating the rapturous crowd to a setlist that felt less like a concert and more like a deep archaeological dig into their own mythos. After an eight-month performance hiatus that left fans subsisting on rumors and bootlegs, the band didn't simply return to the stage; they resurrected their own ghosts, unleashing three profound deep cuts that had been absent from their live repertoire for over two decades.For the initiated, this was the musical equivalent of a solar eclipse—rare, awe-inspiring, and temporally disorienting. The air in the arena crackled with a palpable, almost religious fervor as the first dissonant notes of a song like 'Third Eye,' from their 1996 opus *Ænima*, likely pierced the darkness, a track so epic in its scope and so demanding in its execution that its return felt like a benediction.This wasn't a nostalgia trip; it was a reclamation. Drummer Danny Carey’s polyrhythmic thunder provided the complex architecture over which Adam Jones could weave his hypnotic, textured guitar lines, while bassist Justin Chancellor’s low-end sorcery anchored the psychedelic chaos, creating a sonic tapestry that was both intellectually rigorous and visceral.Frontman Maynard James Keenan, ever the enigmatic priest of this ritual, navigated the labyrinthine compositions with a controlled intensity, his voice shifting from a whisper to a piercing wail, guiding the audience through the band's signature dynamic shifts from meditative ambience to crushing, apocalyptic heaviness. The decision to exhume these specific tracks speaks volumes about Tool’s artistic confidence; in an era where many legacy acts stick to a rigid 'greatest hits' format, Tool challenged its audience, trusting them to embrace the complexity and emotional weight of their more obscure catalog.This setlist curation is a masterclass in fan engagement, a gift to the community that has dissected every time signature and decoded every lyrical mystery. It transforms a mere show into a shared, collective memory, a story to be told and retold.The roar of the crowd as the first forgotten riff echoed through the venue was not just applause; it was a collective gasp of recognition, a moment of unity for thousands who had waited years, if not their entire fandom, to witness these musical white whales live. This concert immediately becomes a benchmark, a legendary entry in the band's storied live history that will be dissected on fan forums for years to come, setting a euphoric and impossibly high bar for the remainder of the tour and cementing once again why Tool remains an unparalleled live phenomenon.
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#deep cuts
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