Live Review: Tool at the Arena at Gwinnett Center, June 4th

It was a long wait before Tool took the stage at Gwinnett Arena 20 minutes late Monday night.

As the first guitar rifts of “Jambi,” from the band’s latest album, 10,000 Days, filled the arena, there was a deafening scream, and it was actually hard to hear lead vocalist Maynard James Keenan for the first few words. But as soon as he began to sing, it seemed to be eerily quiet as everyone became enthralled with his voice and the guttural sound of the band beside him.

Following “Jambi,” Keenan asked, “What’s up, Georgia?” and unfortunately that was all he had to say the entire show. Tool fans, and even people who are not Tool fans who know of Keenan, can agree he is not the typical “rock-star” kind of guy. The band likes to stay out of the spotlight and let its music speak for itself. For the entire two-hour show, it was all music, no silence or even a spoken word from the band. Keenan disappeared every once in a while backstage when he was not needed for vocals in certain songs. When he was on stage, he appeared as a shadow, staying as far back as possible, close to the huge screen portraying the different art and videos that accompanied the songs.