Maybe three or four songs into Tool’s show at the AO Arena on Monday night, Maynard James Keenan chooses to goad the crowd. Pointing to the front sections of the floor seating, he says: “is everybody down here over the age of 58? Because if this grandpa can do it, so can you.”
The audience duly get to their feet. It was a stark reminder that Keenan, who performs shirtless and, with his flamboyant Mohican, remains in the trim shape he always has been in in his late 50s; he appeared trapped in amber, as if no time has passed since the titans of alternative metal were last in Manchester, when in fact, it’s been almost 15 years.
But then, Tool are a band defined by their contradictions; hugely revered yet frustratingly non-prolific, both hugely cerebral in their technical proficiency - they have based the tempo of songs around the Fibonacci sequence before - and liable to give songs titles like ‘Hooker with a P***s’ and ‘Chocolate Chip Dip’, and, tonight, peculiarly forgoing a standing floor; there were to be no mosh pits for one of the biggest rock bands in the world.
