Resorts World Arena Birmingham Tool Analysis 30 May 2024

Bands like Tool don’t come along every day. In fact, if you were a UK fan after 2007, the band didn’t particularly come not at allthe band haven’t visited this side of the Atlantic in 12 years, playing their first show at Download Festival in 2019. Since then, we’ve had a new album and this marks their second full tour of 2019. The seed of fear. But does familiarity really breed contempt?

Of course not. Nearly 20 years since they made the leap from alt metal agitators to cosmic prog metal masters, Tool are a reliably powerful and otherworldly force. Notices posted around Birmingham’s Resorts World Arena lay out a now common rule: no cell phones, no cameras, no exceptions.