Photos courtesy of SPIN magazine.
They have not played live in 6 years and the 3-day stop in Tempe is the beginning of a warm-up tour. Each night sees them playing, in its entirety, each of their three albums. I went the first 2 nights at the Marquee Theatre, a small venue ... a glorified club that might have held about 1,000 people. It's quite a change from having seen Tool several times in arenas. But the smaller venue plays well to the strengths of APC, atmospheric music and vocals. Not to say that APC won't "rock out" but a lot of their songs are more about evoking a mood than banging your head.
These shows were mostly for the benefit of the band and re-associating themselves with each other. Everybody in the band has quite a pedigree and numerous other projects: lead singer Keenan (Tool, Puscifer), lead guitarist Billy Howerdel (Ashes Divide, plus has been guitar tech for NIN, GNR, David Bowie, etc.), guitarist James Iha (Smashing Pumpkins), drummer Josh Freese (Vandals, Devo and has played with NIN), and bassist Matt McJunkins (Ashes Divide, Puscifer).
Their tour was started in Tempe because Keenan lives near Sedona and has an award-winning winery there.
Because of the cult following for Tool/APC and the small venue, the tickets sold out quickly and I was lucky to get them. I can't deny the coolness factor of being there on their first show back. As Maynerd commented on Thursday night, because they were performing these albums completely, there were several songs that they had never played in concert before.
APC played probably their most popular album, Mer de Noms, on Thursday (review in SPIN magazine) and their second album, Thirtheenth Step, on Friday (review at AZ Central). For not having played in awhile, I thought they sounded as great as the limitations of the venue would allow (big open cement-floored room with questionable acoustics).
The crowd was about what you would expect, mostly 25 - 35 in age, with some youngsters and oldsters (ahem, myself included) sprinkled in. As having been reviewed in SPIN would indicate, there was a large trendy hipster contingent with ironic t-shirts and disaffected attitudes. I'm neither cool or clever enough to be a hipster, so I played the aging 90's grunge/industrial elitist who regaled people with stories of how cool it was to see Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam open for the Red Hot Chili Peppers ... as if anyone would care.
Highlights for me were Judith off Mer de Noms and a cover of John Lennon's Imagine on Thursday and The Outsider on Friday. The video for Judith (click the title) was directed by David Fincher. The lyrics are fairly harsh towards religion, and rightly so, came out of bitterness by Keenan at the passing of his very devout mother Judith at the age of 59 from an aneurysm. She was left paralyzed in an accident prior to her death and Keenan could not understand how her faith was strengthened during this period:
You're such an inspiration for the ways that I will never ever choose to be
Oh so many ways for me to show you how your savior has abandoned you
Fuck your god
Your lord, your Christ
He did this
Took all you had and
Left you this way
Still you pray, never stray, never
Taste of the fruit
Never thought to question why
It's not like you killed someone
It's not like you drove a hateful spear into his side
Praise the one who left you broken down and paralyzed
He did it all for you
He did it all for you
Oh so many ways for me to show you how your dogma has abandoned you
Pray
To your Christ, to your god
Never taste of the fruit
Never stray, never break, never
Choke on a lie
Even though he's the one who
Did this to you
Never thought to question why
It's not like you killed someone
It's not like you drove a spiteful spear into his side
Talk to Jesus Christ as if He knows the reasons why
He did it all for you
He did it all for you
Did it all for you
Thursday's Setlist:
The Hollow
Magdalena
Rose
Judith
Orestes
3 Libras
Sleeping Beauty
Thomas
Renholder
Thinking Of You
Brena
Over
Encore:
Diary of a Lovesong
Ashes to Ashes
Imagine
Friday's Set List:
The Package
Weak and Powerless
The Noose
Blue
Vanishing
A Stranger
The Outsider
Crimes
The Nurse Who Loved Me
Pet
Lullaby
Gravity
Imagine
