As everyone from Mike Patton to Buzz Osborne have noted, opening for TOOL is no easy task. The prog-metal titans — singer Maynard James Keenan, guitarist Adam Jones, bassist Justin Chancellor and drummer Danny Carey — have always gone out of their way to handpick wide-ranging and boundary-pushing artists as their opening acts, but the band's audiences have not always been so receptive.
In a recent interview with Metal Hammer, Jack Black reflected on the experience of opening for TOOL in 1995 with his then-very-new comedic acoustic-rock duo Tenacious D, also featuring Kyle Gass. The twosome had been invited by Keenan, an early supporter of the group, to support his band for three shows, the first being at The Tejon Theatre in Korn's hometown of Bakersfield, California, on December 15th.
Tenacious D took the stage, and the crowd was not having it. As Metal Hammer describes the scene, the D were met with "venomous jeers."
"I didn't feel like we weren't ready for prime time," Black remarked, looking back at the trial by fire. "I just felt like, 'Oh, this is what happens when we don't go to the right audience.' We know TOOL. TOOL's great, but that crowd – they came for TOOL or you better be a lot like TOOL. Ha ha! We were a lot softer than TOOL. We came out playing 'Jesus Ranch' and they were like, 'What?!'"
TOOL are set to hit the road for a major North American tour starting September 22nd. No word yet on who will get the honor of opening for them.
