TOOL TIME

It has been five long years, but if Tool fans know anything, it’s that greatness takes time. Finally, the heaviest modern metal experience of all, Tool, will return to Australia in January 2007.

For over 15 years, Tool’s Maynard James Keenan (vocals), Danny Carey (drums), Justin Chancellor (bass) and Adam Jones (guitar) have been breaking, shaking and earthquaking new musical ground.

Tool’s four exquisitely crafted albums, Undertow, Aenima, Lateralus, and the apocalyptic new opus, 10,000 Days, have sold around 15 million copies globally. Now the best metal band in the world are bringing their unique melding of art, prog and metal back to Sydney and Melbourne for two special shows.

With a set that reaches back over a decade to the still-staggering “Sober”, all the way through to the present paranoia, war and love of 10,000 Days songs including “Vicarious” and “Rosetta Stoned”, the current Tool show is a thing of rare power. Also, never a band to do anything by halves, Tool’s 10,000 Days live show is also a visual feast.

“Video screens behind the band were synched to the split second for each song, showing abstract patterns and bald creatures doing obscurely creepy things involving slime and viscera. But the real show was in the musicianship: the interlocked parts, the snowballing dynamics, the way each episode of a song only contributed to its suspense… the way the music winds tighter and tighter before it explodes.” (New York Times, May 2006)

With 10,000 Days debuting at No.1 in both Australia and the US (and doubling the first week sales of the other big release – Pearl Jam – that particular week in both territories) Tool are living, breathing proof that loyalty still exists in rock music: loyalty between a band that refuses to compromise, and fans that expect nothing less.

And a note to the Tool faithful in all other corners of Australasia – never fear! Additional appearances in Auckland, Queensland, Adelaide and Perth are scheduled and will be announced shortly. Cough, Big Day Out, ahem.

Dates:
Wednesday 24 January 2006 - Sydney Entertainment Centre
Wednesday 31 January 2006 - Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne

HAVE SOME CHILI WITH THAT

Many of the gods, goddesses, angels, demons & elementals of the universal have conspired to send messages from beyond through the Red Hot Chili Peppers for the current civilization. Now these messages have taken the materialized form of the most visually compelling, musically gratifying, explosive live performances our earth bound souls are likely to experience.

Inspirational, influential and innovative, Red Hot Chili Peppers are the band that many others aspire to be. They have played with light, darkness, sound, silence, form, air and space to make music that plays with the listener, hilst simultaneously engaging and invigorating – promising more and always delivering.

Long heralded as one of the best live concert experiences one can have, these supreme Gods of Funk return to Australia after a 4 year absence to once again ignite the Antipodean fires of musical appreciation.

In a career spanning 20 years and nine albums, the Grammy award-winning, genre-defying RHCP have accumulated over 50 million album sales world-wide. Their most highly acclaimed output includes the multiplatinum releases Californication (1999) and Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991), which gave the world classic tracks “Breaking The Girl”, “Give It Away”, and “Under the Bridge”.

Since then, the band have lost their musical stone, John Frusciante, and then cleverly got him back again clean, green, and ready to rock.

Their latest offering, Stadium Arcadium, features the lead single “Dani California”, and is already double platinum in Australia, having debuted atop the ARIA charts in typical RHCP fashion.

Dates:
April 2006
Saturday 7 - Adelaide Entertainment Centre
Tuesday 10 - Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne
Friday 13 - Brisbane Entertainment Centre
Monday 16 - Acer Arena, Sydney