Tool Unearth Song For The First Time Since Big Day Out

Tool fans, rejoice: if you’re enthusiastic about keeping track of the US band’s setlists or witnessed them live in action at Madison Square Garden on Friday (12 January), a rarity was finally added back to the setlist.

Flood, from the group’s 1993 debut album Undertow, was played live for the first time in almost 13 years. Tool last performed Flood at the 2011 Big Day Out festival on 23 January (Gold Coast), 27 January (Sydney), 30 January (Melbourne), 4 February (Adelaide), and 6 January (Perth).

In addition to the return of Flood, Tool also performed an extended version of the 2001 classic Schism for the first time as the show closer. You can watch footage of the surprise numbers below.

In a 2020 review of the band’s concert at Perth’s RAC Arena, The Music writer Melanie Griffiths summarised, “Tool made a triumphant return, giving a near-perfect performance by delivering to the Tool army a two-hour show that was an impressive visual and aural experience,” calling the concert a “must-see if you want to see a group at its apex.”

A few months ago, bassist Justin Chancellor hinted at the band’s “many ideas cooking” for a new album.

“We haven’t recorded anything yet,” Chancellor shared, “But we’re quite busy until after the spring of next year touring. So once that’s done, we’re gonna get back in the studio and knuckle down and put some of it together.” 

Revealing that the band already had some writing sessions down, he continued, “A few pretty decent sessions of writing. So, we’ve got all the ingredients in place. We’ve just got to really bang it out and spend that time when we’re not touring.”

Last April, Tool singer Maynard James Keenan put a pin in any rumours surrounding an anniversary tour of Undertow, labelling himself as “too old” to perform a full set of old songs.

“I think my writing has changed over the years, and I can do some of those songs,” he said in an interview. “I can’t do a whole set of those songs. I can pepper them in, so I can still do some of those things.

“If you’re actually sitting down and thinking about it, you can’t expect some of those dudes, [from] back in the day, to do the thing they did… 30 years ago, 40 years ago. You can’t expect that out of that body. Your body doesn’t do those things forever.”